STORY PRODUCED BY THE CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE
The rate of children and adolescents getting routine vaccinations is declining across the state, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics.
Routine vaccinations are shots for polio, measles, mumps and rubella for children and meningitis for teenagers, said Kao-Ping Chua, an associate professor at the University of Michigan who oversaw the study.
Researchers looked at data from the Michigan Care Improvement Registry from 2017 to 2023. The registry documents the vaccinations an individual has received, he said.
They found that childhood immunizations dropped from 75.7% to 66.8% during the study period, while adolescent immunizations dropped from 80.7% to 74.5%.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the already-declining childhood vaccination rates, Chua said.
However, COVID-19 did not have the same impact on teenage vaccination rates.
“The pandemic itself did not seem to alter that pre-existing decline,” he said. “It didn't make it decline more quickly or less quickly. It just kind of continued on at its same rate.”
Economic status also played a part in the trend. Counties with a lower median household income and higher rates of residents without health insurance saw larger declines in vaccination rates.
The rate of decline was comparable between rural and urban counties.
“There were increased barriers to accessing health care during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the visits needed to get vaccinations,” Chua said. “These barriers may have been particularly pronounced in lower-income counties and in counties where there were more people without insurance.”
Some of those barriers remain, like difficulty in accessing transportation to get to the doctor’s office and being able to take time off work to get to an appointment, he said.
Chua said social factors also contribute to the decline, like rhetoric from policymakers and the media that can amplify feelings of mistrust about vaccines.
“There has been increasing exposure to misinformation about vaccines recently, for example through social media channels,” he said.
He also said backlash against COVID-19 vaccines may have spilled over to lack of trust in routine child and adolescent vaccinations, making some parents more hesitant to get their children vaccinated.
Florence Hoffert-Dallo, a professor and the department chair of public health at Oakland University, said it’s important for people to get vaccinated.
“We’ve had over hundreds of years of research to show that vaccines save lives. We also know that when people stop vaccinating we see mortality rates increase for infants, adolescents, adults and older people,” she said.
One positive result of the majority of a population being vaccinated is “herd immunity,” which occurs if 85% to 90% of the population is vaccinated, thus protecting the remaining unvaccinated people from illness, she said.
“For example, if I get the COVID shot and my family does not, by me getting the COVID shot, I will probably not get COVID and then I can't pass it on to them,” Hoffert-Dallo said.
But if the percentage of vaccinated people in a community drops too low, herd immunity goes away, she said.
Educating people about the benefits of vaccines and making them affordable and easy to access are ways to reverse the trend, Hoffert-Dallo said.
“We meet the people where they are, not force them to do it, but talk to them about what consequences it can have if it’s not done,” she said.
She said it can be harder to get vaccinated in a rural area than in an urban area because there are usually fewer available locations to get shots, and transportation can be a problem.
The new study proposed broad campaigns for the state to increase the vaccination rate, including targeted campaigns for counties with lower household incomes and higher rates of uninsured residents.
Jen Morse, the medical director at the Mid-Michigan District Health Department, said as the vaccination rate is declining the state is seeing more outbreaks of diseases.
The district covers Clinton, Gratiot and Montcalm counties.
“The biggest risk is with measles because measles right now is one of the most contagious illnesses we have in the world,” Morse said. “One infection in a community can cause a huge outbreak.”
There have been three measles outbreaks in Michigan reported in the past year. Each was contained and took place in isolated communities with low vaccination rates among residents, she said.
Other vaccine preventable diseases like whooping cough, mumps and pneumonia have the possibility of returning in greater numbers if rates continue to drop, she said.
It’s not enough to make vaccines widely available to the public – people need to recognize their importance. Otherwise they won’t get them, Morse said.
“Vaccinations are one of the biggest accomplishments that have been made in our health over the last several centuries and have taken a huge hit in terms of public acceptance,” she said. “Until that changes, we’re just going to continue to see rates drop.”
She said she recommends people talk to their health care providers about their concerns and look into the sources of their information about vaccines.
Having open conversations between providers and patients is important, she said.
“That's one thing I've learned over the years, to honestly look at why people are concerned and address them,” Morse said.