Tennessee’s kindergarten vaccination rate is slipping, as more parents opt out of shots or get them late

More Tennessee kindergarteners are missing their required vaccines, and it’s not only because more parents are opting out. There are also more children missing shots without exemptions.

Public health experts say if we want to create herd immunity from common diseases like the measles and whooping cough, kindergarten vaccination rates should be at least 95%. Tennessee’s vaccine rates have been slipping for years, and for most shots, the rate is right at that number. It’s at 94.8% for DTaP — the shot for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.

More than 2,500 kindergarteners were reported as exempt during the 2022-23 school year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. The agency didn’t include that figure in its data until 2018, but exemptions have grown every year since then. Before the pandemic, parents had opted about 1,500 kids out of their required shots.

That’s playing a major role in the overall drop in vaccination, says Dr. Sandra Arnold. She’s the division chief of pediatric infectious disease at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. She notes that Mississippi had one of the highest vaccination rates in the country, and that state allows only medical exemptions — no religious or philosophical ones.

Tennessee’s exemption rate — about 3.2% — isn’t particularly high compared to other states. It comes in 27th. Idaho, Oregon and Utah have the highest opt-out rates.

Tennessee ranks much higher for states with exemption rate increases. About 650 more children were exempt in the 2022-23 school year than the year before. Adjusted for population, Tennessee had the 12th steepest growth.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks the number of children who don’t have an exemption or their shots; they’re in a grace period. That’s becoming more common too.

During the pandemic, people were afraid of going to the doctor and delayed care. Studies have shown that affected cancer screening and STI testing. Arnold says that fear might have affected vaccine appointments.

“Things went back to normal fairly quickly here in terms of doctors offices being available,” she said. “But I can tell you that numbers of visits have not recovered completely.”

The CDC tends to release these reports in October, so we should get a look at numbers for the 2023-24 school year soon.