Kindergarten Vaccination Rates Still Lagging in Some States

By Kelly Young

Edited by André Sofair, MD, MPH, and William E. Chavey, MD, MS

Twenty-seven states did not meet the Healthy People 2020 target of 95% coverage for the two doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, according to an MMWR article on vaccination rates for kindergarteners in the 2013–14 school year.

Colorado had the lowest rates of full coverage for three vaccines — varicella, MMR, and diphtheria, tetanus toxoid, and acellular pertussis — at roughly 80% for each. Mississippi had the highest vaccination rates, each approaching 100%.

The median exemption rate is still low overall, at 1.8%. Oregon had the highest vaccine exemption rate, at 7.1%. Exemption rates rose over the prior year in Kansas and Maine.

The authors note: "Vaccination exemptions have been shown to cluster geographically, so vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks can still occur where unvaccinated persons cluster in schools and communities."