Document Type

Presentation

Loading...

Media is loading
 

Publication Date

7-23-2015

Comments

Advisor:

D Harris, Jefferson School of Population Health, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA

Abstract

The public health achievement of elimination and near elimination of vaccine preventable diseases is currently threatened by state policies enabling children the ability to opt out of mandated vaccines. All 50 states require children to meet certain immunization requirements as a condition of school enrollment, and 18 currently have legislation that allow exemption for personal or philosophical reasons. Three states allow only medical exemptions. In New Jersey, the school vaccine mandate law allows exemptions when vaccines pose a medical concern or violation of an individual’s religious belief. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the December 2008 state interpretation of existing policy and subsequent regulation requiring school and public health officials to grant a religious exemption to any child with a parent’s note referencing religion. Evidence exists that some vaccine-hesitant parents share boilerplate language to exploit use of the unchallenged religious exemption (RE). Trend analysis using school-reported data on the New Jersey Annual Immunization Status Reports for school years 2005-2006 through 2013-2014 demonstrated an over five-fold increase in the number of religious exemptions granted by local public and private schools. Multiple regression analyses using six predictor variables were performed using the 2013-2014 county religious exemption rates for Kindergarten and First Grade to build a profile of high utilization areas. For Kindergarten, higher RE rates were associated with White and Asian race, high household income, and advanced education (pp

Presentation: 33 minutes

Download Presentation

Submit Feedback on Presentation

Share

COinS