Nonmedical Exemptions to Vaccine Rose 2.5 Percentage Points From 2010 to 2024

A research letter published in JAMA estimates that “county-level U.S. nonmedical exemptions to childhood vaccine requirements rose 2.5 percentage points from 2010 to 2024.” CIDRAP has the news.

The Stanford-led research team cautions that this “raises the risk of a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases.” Nonmedical exemptions are granted for “personal beliefs or religious reasons.”

The analysis included data from 45 states and over 3,000 counties. The median county-level nonmedical exemption rate “rose from 0.6% in 2010-11 to 3.1% in 2023-24, but medical exemptions stayed the same. The median nonmedical exemption rate increased by 0.11 percentage points each year from 2010 to 2020 and by 0.52 percentage points annually after the emergence of SARS-CoV-2.” States with the highest rates of nonmedical exceptions from 2021 to 2024 were Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Wisconsin.

States that eliminated nonmedical exceptions saw declines over that same period. The study authors wrote that “nonmedical exemptions to school-based childhood vaccination requirements are associated with lower vaccination coverage and increased risk of outbreaks, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has advocated that states eliminate such exemptions.”