Fewer Maine parents are refusing immunizations for their kindergartners, according to new federal data indicating a reversal in a growing trend toward skipping children’s shots.
During the 2014-2015 school year, parents opted out of vaccines for 4.4 percent of Maine’s kindergarten students, ranking Maine 10th in the nation for vaccine opt-outs, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That’s down 1.1 percent from the previous school year, when Maine had the fourth highest rate of parents rejecting vaccines.
While Maine’s opt-out rate dropped, it still exceeded the national average. Across the country, 1.7 percent of parents refused to immunize their kindergarteners against preventable diseases. Pockets of unprotected children remain, however, posing a threat to public health, according to the government study.
Even a small breakdown in immunizations can raise the risk of a disease outbreak. “Herd immunity,” when enough people are vaccinated to prevent the spread of infectious disease, even to unvaccinated individuals, begins to falter if 90 percent to 95 percent or less of the population is immunized, health officials say.
Maine is among 18 states that allow parents to exempt their children from school-required immunizations for philosophical reasons. Children also can be exempted from the requirements for medical and religious reasons, but those account for a small fraction of Maine’s opt-outs.
Philosophical exemptions in Maine fell from 766 in 2012-13 to 504 during the last school year, according to the CDC report.
Dr. Lawrence Losey, a Brunswick pediatrician who sits on the state’s immunization task force, described the drop in exemptions as a reason for optimism but cautioned against identifying a trend based on one year’s numbers. He still sees “hardcore vaccine refusers” in his practice, he said.
“People are recognizing how this is a threat and that it’s incumbent upon all of us as citizens who interact with other citizens to look out for our health and the health of those around us,” he said.
Recent research has shown the strength of a doctor’s recommendation about vaccination is one of biggest predictors of whether kids get immunized and that talking to parents about the horrors of preventable diseases is more effective than trying to convince them of vaccine safety, Losey said.
The new data could signal the tide beginning to turn against anti-vaccine sentiment in Maine — before now, opt-outs steadily climbed since at least 2011.
Anti-vaccine views likely haven’t softened among staunch opponents, suspects Cassandra Grantham, program manager for MaineHealth’s Childhood Immunization Task Force. But because of a strong public health effort in Maine over the last several years, more parents are getting reliable information before resistance to vaccines can take root, she said.
“Maybe they’re getting a more balanced perspective, rather than just using the Internet or friends and family, etc. … I think maybe we’re hitting folks when they’re trying to make these difficult decisions,” she said.
Without an exemption, kindergarten students in Maine must be vaccinated against whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, polio and chickenpox.
The CDC data reflect about 89 percent of Maine’s 13,700 kindergarten students.
Maine parents also rely on vaccines to protect their children before they’re old enough to start school. A companion CDC report showed Maine ranked first in the nation for vaccination coverage among toddlers in 2014.
Nearly 85 percent of Maine children ages 19 to 35 months completed a group of recommended vaccines that protect against whooping cough, polio, measles, bacterial meningitis, hepatitis B, chickenpox and pneumococcal disease, the report showed.
The vaccine rate for measles, the highly contagious illness that grabbed headlines earlier this year following an outbreak in California, in particular showed improvement. More than 97 percent of Maine toddlers received that immunization in 2014, up 6.2 percentage points from 2013.
Maine CDC Director and Chief Operating Officer Kenneth Albert credited the state’s top ranking for toddler immunizations to strong public health collaborations.
“These results are a cause for celebration and reflect an effective partnership that has been built across the state to address this important health issue,” he said in a statement. “Our success can be attributed to the hard work of clinicians, partners, educators and funders who have collectively made the vaccination of Maine’s children a public health priority.”
The toddler immunization figures are based on a national survey that reports state rates using a random sample, Losey said, urging skepticism in evaluating them. Maine has jumped around in the rankings, rocketing to first place after a below-average showing in 2013, with 68 percent of toddlers immunized. Maine may not top the list again in 2016, he said.
Still, it’s reasonable to assume the state’s efforts to increase vaccination are paying off, Losey said.
“It certainly is heartening to see a trend going the way you want a trend to go,” he said. “Does one data point make a trend?”
Maine lawmakers considered several bills involving vaccination during the last legislative session, but none ultimately became law.
For many decades, Maine rested on its laurels, treating shots as an assumed part of early childhood, Grantham said. Now, the public health community must continue to promote vaccination, such as by finding better ways to talk to parents and checking children’s immunization histories at every medical appointment, she said.
“New babies are born every day, new parents obviously are then made every day,” Grantham said. “New providers go into practice every day. We’re living in a world that doesn’t see as much vaccine-preventable disease. We need to sustain the educational and awareness efforts that we’ve really only just begun.”
