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Vaccination Rates May Influence School Choice
Vaccine; ePub 2018 Jun 13; Cataldi, et al
Publicly available vaccination rates may influence parental school and child care choice, a recent study found. A 2016 cross-sectional email survey of Colorado mothers with children aged ≤12 years assessed value of vaccination rates on school/child care choice. A willingness-to-pay framework measured preference for schools/child cares with different vaccination rates using tradeoff with commute time. Researchers found:
- Survey response rate was 42%.
- 12% of respondents were “vaccine-hesitant”.
- Both vaccine-hesitant and non-hesitant parents value vaccination rates information.
- Both were willing to accept longer commute times to protect their children from vaccine-preventable diseases.
- Parents of child-care-age children were more likely to consider vaccination rates important.
Citation:
Cataldi JR, Dempsey AF, Allison MA, O’Leary ST. Impact of publicly available vaccination rates on parental school and child care choice. [Published online ahead of print June 13, 2018]. Vaccine. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2018.06.013.
This study was interesting but, not necessarily surprising in its outcome. When we send our children off to school, we would like that school experience to be as safe as possible. This would extend to security, to the physical plant, and also to health issues. It seems clear from the study that parents view vaccination rates as an important part of protecting their children from vaccine preventable diseases. What was interesting was that parents that were hesitant to vaccinate their own children valued this as well. I would imagine that this would extend to hospitals and nursing homes also. Even patients’ families that did not receive influenza vaccine would probably feel more comfortable if their loved one was in a facility where it was mandated that staff be vaccinated. — John Russell, MD