MedPageToday Nonmedical exemptions to childhood vaccination requirements are on the rise, with substantial variation among U.S. counties and states, an analysis of county-level data showed.
The median rate of nonmedical vaccination exemptions for personal beliefs or religious reasons increased from 0.6% in 2010-2011 to 3.1% in 2023-2024, while the rate of medical exemptions remained steady, reported Nathan Lo, MD, PhD, of Stanford University in California, and colleagues in a research letter in JAMA.
The COVID-19 pandemic was an exemption turning point. While the median nonmedical exemption rate rose by 0.11 percentage points every year from 2010 to 2020 (95% CI 0.10-0.12), it rose 0.52 percentage points annually from 2021 to 2024 (95% CI 0.48-0.57). During this later time period, 53.5% of the 2,842 counties with data available over both time periods reported an increase in nonmedical exemptions greater than 1%, and 5.3% of counties reported an increase greater than 5%.