About one in six parents have skipped or delayed vaccinating their children against diseases other than COVID-19 or the flu, according to a new poll from The Washington Post and healthcare policy nonprofit KFF.
The poll’s findings show that 16 percent of parents are forgoing getting their children vaccinated for diseases other than COVID-19 or the flu, with White parents, Republicans, the religious and those homeschooling their kids more likely to skip the shots.
American parents who homeschool a child and those who consider themselves to be very religious are the most likely to delay giving their children vaccines, with 46 percent and 36 percent forgoing inoculations for their kids, respectively.
Americans who identify as Republicans are almost two times more likely to skip or delay vaccinating their children for diseases other than COVID-19 and the flu, with 22 percent and 12 percent, respectively, choosing to do so.
Similarly, White Americans are nearly four times as likely to skip or delay vaccinating their children compared to Asian Americans, with 19 percent and 5 percent, respectively, forgoing or putting off inoculating their kids, according to the poll.
Other poll findings show that fewer children are being vaccinated in the United States. A KFF poll released in early August found that 92.5 percent of kindergarteners were vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, and polio, and 92.1 percent against DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis) during the 2024-25 school year.
Those rates are drops from 2019-20 numbers when 95 percent of kids had received the MMR, polio and DTaP vaccines.
Public health experts typically recommend vaccination rates of 95 percent to protect communities from disease transmission.
Vaccination rates among children have been declining since the COVID-19 pandemic, and public health experts worry that those rates will continue to fall as Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a prominent vaccine skeptic, continues to change federal vaccine policy.
The Post-KFF poll shows that concerns over vaccines are, at least in part, driving parents’ decisions to forgo the shots.
Among parents who skipped or delayed vaccines, 67 percent said concerns over vaccine side-effects were a “major reason” they did not want their children to be inoculated, and 53 percent cited a lack of trust in vaccine safety as another major reason for forgoing the shots.
The Post-KFF poll was conducted on 2,716 parents or guardians of children under 18 between July 18 and August 4. Results have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
