Mary Wilson
Well-known member
June 7, 2023
Stephanie Soucheray, MA
A new analysis of 21 polls conducted before and after the COVID-19 pandemic shows parents are changing how they think about school vaccination mandates, but not about vaccine safety.
The nuanced findings are published in Heath Affairs, and they bring to light the complicated relationship between COVID-19 vaccines, parental choice, and public health. Study author Gillian SteelFisher, PhD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told CIDRAP News the study shows that the top-level media narrative that the pandemic increased vaccine hesitancy in America is false.
"The good news is that the perception of safety and efficacy around child vaccinations has not dropped; in fact, it has increased," SteelFisher said. "The public saw the COVID-19 vaccines as totally new vaccines, and they drew comparisons to past vaccines, which then seemed very safe and effective."
Before the pandemic, polls showed 54% to 61% of Americans believed childhood vaccines are "very safe," and that rose to 70% by the end of 2022, the analysis found.
Mandates, not safety, called into question
The traditional childhood vaccines—those that protect against polio, measles, mumps, rubella, and other illnesses—have been the bedrock of US public health policy, and a vaccine requirement has been standard in public schools for almost half a century.
The polls SteelFisher and co-authors analyzed, which were conducted from 2015 to 2023, showed that support for mandating vaccination for school attendance decreased following the pandemic. But the decrease in support for school mandates was not because there was an increased perception that routine childhood immunizations were unsafe; rather, there was an increased opposition to any sort of vaccine mandate or regulation.
"COVID resulted in much less support for any kind of mandates anywhere," said SteelFisher. "There's a large swath of population concerned about overreach."
And although polls show a minority (40%) of Americans trust public health agencies to provide accurate information about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for adolescents, a majority (54%) place a great deal of trust in public health agencies to provide information about the safety of routine childhood vaccines. ...
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhoo...tudes-toward-mandating-childhood-vaccinations
Stephanie Soucheray, MA
A new analysis of 21 polls conducted before and after the COVID-19 pandemic shows parents are changing how they think about school vaccination mandates, but not about vaccine safety.
The nuanced findings are published in Heath Affairs, and they bring to light the complicated relationship between COVID-19 vaccines, parental choice, and public health. Study author Gillian SteelFisher, PhD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told CIDRAP News the study shows that the top-level media narrative that the pandemic increased vaccine hesitancy in America is false.
"The good news is that the perception of safety and efficacy around child vaccinations has not dropped; in fact, it has increased," SteelFisher said. "The public saw the COVID-19 vaccines as totally new vaccines, and they drew comparisons to past vaccines, which then seemed very safe and effective."
Before the pandemic, polls showed 54% to 61% of Americans believed childhood vaccines are "very safe," and that rose to 70% by the end of 2022, the analysis found.
Mandates, not safety, called into question
The traditional childhood vaccines—those that protect against polio, measles, mumps, rubella, and other illnesses—have been the bedrock of US public health policy, and a vaccine requirement has been standard in public schools for almost half a century.
The polls SteelFisher and co-authors analyzed, which were conducted from 2015 to 2023, showed that support for mandating vaccination for school attendance decreased following the pandemic. But the decrease in support for school mandates was not because there was an increased perception that routine childhood immunizations were unsafe; rather, there was an increased opposition to any sort of vaccine mandate or regulation.
"COVID resulted in much less support for any kind of mandates anywhere," said SteelFisher. "There's a large swath of population concerned about overreach."
And although polls show a minority (40%) of Americans trust public health agencies to provide accurate information about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for adolescents, a majority (54%) place a great deal of trust in public health agencies to provide information about the safety of routine childhood vaccines. ...
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhoo...tudes-toward-mandating-childhood-vaccinations