CDC Calls on Local Officials to Get Kids Vaccinated as Participation Continues to Decline

A 3-year-old girl sits on the lap of her mother in a file photo during a vaccination. David Ryder/Getty Images

Routine childhood vaccinations among kindergartners in U.S. public and private schools were down the previous school year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

For the 2023–24 school year, vaccine updates among that grade cohort “declined” to lower than 93 percent “for all reported vaccines,” including diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTAP) as well as for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), the CDC said on Oct. 17.

About 92.3 percent of kindergartners got the DTAP vaccine in the last school year, while 92.7 got the MMR vaccine, the agency said. The polio vaccine uptake range was 92.6 percent, while the varicella uptake was 92.4 percent, according to the CDC.

“Decreasing vaccination coverage and increasing exemptions increase the risk for vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks,” the agency said. “Efforts by health departments, schools, and providers are needed to ensure that students begin school fully vaccinated.”

At the same time, the vaccine exemption rate increased from 3 percent to 3.3 percent for the 2023–24 year and increased broadly in 41 jurisdictions. In 14 jurisdictions, that figure jumped to 5 percent, it said.

“The decreases in coverage, combined with increases in exemptions, jeopardize reaching the Healthy People 2030 95 percent coverage of kindergartners with MMR target,” the CDC report authors wrote. “The number of jurisdictions with exemption rates” greater than 5 percent increased from two in 2020-2021 to 14 in 2023-2024, they added.

Meanwhile, about 280,000 kindergartners “did not have documentation of 2 MMR doses and were potentially at risk for measles infection,” the agency added.

In its report, the CDC made note of hesitancy to take COVID-19 vaccines, which are not mandated to attend any public school.

“These results could indicate changes in attitudes toward routine vaccination transferring from hesitancy about COVID-19 vaccination, or toward any vaccine requirements arising from objections to COVID-19 vaccine mandates, as well as a potential for larger decreases in coverage or increases in exemptions,” the CDC researchers wrote.

Over the summer, a survey from Gallup found that “far fewer” people in the United States believe childhood vaccines are important. About 40 percent said that it is “extremely important” for kids to receive childhood vaccines, down from 58 percent who said the same in 2019 and 64 percent in 2001.

Americans also are less likely to say that the government should mandate that children receive vaccines such as the MMR and DTAP shots. Only 51 percent of respondents share this view, which is down 11 percentage points from 2019, or the year before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Gallup.

In a 1991 poll from Princeton Survey Research Associates, 81 percent of people favored vaccine mandates for children at the time, the pollster noted.

A poll from The Ohio State University released in September found that a significant number of Americans are hesitant to get a vaccine. Some 37 percent of adult respondents said they received a vaccine in the past but wouldn’t get one this year.

It also found that 56 percent, or a slight majority, of adults have received or plan to get an influenza shot in the fall. Influenza vaccines are not mandated to attend public schools in most jurisdictions, although New York City schools do require the flu shot.

Less than half of respondents, or about 43 percent, have received or are planning to get one of the COVID-19 vaccines, the survey found.