Description
Vaccination plays a crucial role in maintaining health and viability in the human population; and the key to successful vaccination efforts hinges upon the attainment of herd immunity for a number of debilitating diseases. In recent years, outbreaks of formerly controlled diseases have been linked to a lapse in this herd immunity which can potentially be attributed to parents choosing not to vaccinate their children. As an impetus to understand the factors that contribute to this failure to vaccinate, a study of children in childcare facilities in the 2014-2015 school year was undertaken. This school-level dataset was condensed into a county-level dataset so that comparisons to the American Community Survey (2014-2015) county estimates of the population could be made. Using negative binomial regression models of the data, it was determined that increased total personal belief vaccination exemptions in California childcare facilities were associated with higher percentages of bachelor and high school degrees in the county population. In addition, median family income was negatively associated with total as well as with religious personal belief vaccination exemptions. Finally, it was determined that religious personal belief vaccination exemption was positively associated with the percentage of white residents as well as with the percentage of bachelor degree educations in the county. The results of this study highlight the need for additional data collection to take place at the school-level so that future studies can better uncover the trends with parents who refuse to vaccinate their children using direct instead of surrogate measures for these risk factors.
