This state’s kindergarten vaccination rates decline as more parents claim exemptions

New childhood vaccination data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that Georgia vaccination rates are decreasing, with 86.8% of the state’s children fully up-to-date on their required vaccines when they entered kindergarten last year.

The state DPH has posted online only immunization reports by county for children ages 19 to 35 months, not for older children like those entering kindergarten. Those reports have not been updated since the third quarter of 2023.

Detailed, local-level data is important because “vaccination behavior and vaccine exemption behavior is a very socially and spatially clustered behavior,” Alison Buttenheim, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s nursing school said during a June media briefing. “We tend to see it in clumps.”