Researchers obtained data for 2,237 counties across 38 states.
The rates of measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccination declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers reported in a new paper.
In a research letter dated June 2, researchers found that the county-level mean vaccination rate of MMR vaccination was 93.9 percent before the pandemic. The rate dropped to 91.2 percent after the pandemic.
Lauren Gardner, with the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Maryland, and co-authors analyzed data from state health departments and other sources to track county-level changes in MMR vaccination from the 2017–18 school year to the 2023-2024 school year.
Researchers were able to obtain data for 33 states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington state, and Wisconsin.
All but four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—logged decreases in MMR vaccination coverage.
The data show how even states with high MMR vaccination coverage can have counties with low rates, placing them at increased risk of measles outbreaks, Gardner told The Epoch Times in an email.
“Additionally, this data set reveals a very clear and alarming trend in (declining) vaccination coverage across almost all states, which aligns with an observable increase in reported measles cases,” she said.
The paper was published amid multiple outbreaks of measles in the United States. The CDC says that, as of May 29, there are 1,088 confirmed measles cases reported across 33 states, about 90 percent of which are associated with outbreaks that started this year.
The largest MMR vaccination rate decline was recorded in Hawaii, which now has the second-lowest rate after Wisconsin.
Health officials in Hawaii did not respond to an inquiry from The Epoch Times by publication time.
A spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services said the agency is working to increase MMR vaccination rates.
“The decline in vaccination rates is complex and likely due to several different things, including limited access to routine health care during the pandemic, the rise of misinformation and disinformation about vaccines which may have led people to refuse or delay vaccines, as well as other barriers for families to access vaccines,” the spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.
