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In an Emory University survey of nearly 1,000 Georgia parents released Tuesday, 86% said they believe childhood vaccines are very or somewhat safe.
The purpose of the survey – which its organizers hope will become an annual report that helps track changes over time – was to find out what parents think about the well-being of their children.
The Emory professors worked with polling company Ipsos to conduct an online poll between late January and early March that represented the population of Georgia parents and analyzed the results.
Overall, nearly 86% of parents were confident vaccines are safe.
“Generally, parents trust the information they get,” said pediatrician Dr. Stephen Patrick, a professor at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health who helped organize the survey.
Vaccination rates for deadly childhood diseases like measles are on the decline in Georgia, falling to 88% for young children, as measles cases surge across the country and newly appointed public health leaders like U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promote misinformation about vaccines.
The survey, which also captured parents’ top concerns and unmet needs for their children’s health, broke down results by racial group, as well as geography. That analysis showed that a lower percentage of Black parents, 81.7%, thought routine childhood vaccines are very or somewhat safe; 91.7% of Hispanic parents thought the same.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents said they trust their child’s doctor to provide accurate information about vaccines. Other trusted sources include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Georgia Department of Public Health, county health departments, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Parents in rural and urban areas said they trust their child’s doctor at about equal levels, but rural parents placed greater levels of trust in the DPH and their county health department for vaccine information than urban parents did.
Doctors and others can be key “trusted messengers” to provide vaccine information to parents, Patrick said.
“Everything is local, especially in rural communities. That connection is paramount,” he said.
The survey also asked parents what they thought about school vaccine requirements.
Most parents – 55% – said childhood vaccines should be required, with many saying exemptions should be allowed for medical or religious reasons.
Georgia requires children to be vaccinated to attend school, including preschool, but parents can obtain religious or medical exemptions. Georgia’s vaccination rates are below the community or “herd” immunity rate needed to prevent widespread transmission of measles.
State public health workers contained an outbreak of three cases in one family earlier this year.
Education, bullying, violence among other concerns
The survey also asked parents to rank their top concerns for their children. These were the top five:
1. Education and school quality: 39%
2. Social media use: 34%
3. Bullying, including cyberbullying: 32%
4. Gun violence: 27%
5. Mental health and suicide: 25%
The results varied by ethnicity, the report said. Hispanic and Black parents were most concerned about gun violence, while white parents were most concerned about social media use. Hispanic and Black parents were also concerned about racism, while white parents were not.
Rural parents listed drug and alcohol use as one of their top concerns, while urban parents ranked gun violence in the top five.
Even though bullying or social media may not be traditional public health issues, they are important to children’s health.
“All of these things are intertwined,” Patrick said. “You can’t neatly piece them apart.”
The study also asked parents about their concerns about alcohol and drug use.
Overall, about one-third of parents believed unused prescription opioid pills were the main cause of adolescent overdose deaths. Another third thought counterfeit pills that contained fentanyl or other dangerous drugs were the main cause.
Patrick said the leading cause of overdose deaths among adolescents is counterfeit pills that contain fentanyl.
“Talk to your kids about counterfeit pills and their dangers,” Patrick said. While prescription pills can be a risk, parents need to talk about counterfeit pills to their children.
Nearly two-thirds of the parents surveyed said they thought schools are less safe than they were 10 years ago.
Nearly half of parents reported keeping firearms in their home or garage. While the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends counseling families on firearm safety, only about a quarter of the parents in the survey said their pediatrician had asked about safe gun storage.
Unmet needs include mental health services, food
The study also found that 3 of 5 children in Georgia, or 63%, have been diagnosed with mental or behavioral conditions but are not receiving mental health services.
“There are incredible challenges to getting access to mental health services in the entire U.S.,” Patrick said.
Federal data show that more than one-third of Georgia households with children are food insecure. More than half of parents in the survey reported changing their food spending habits in the past year, including by stopping or reducing eating out, changing the types of food they eat, and changing where they buy groceries. Nearly a quarter, or 23%, of parents reported skipping meals.
Ninety-one percent of the parents polled supported free breakfast and lunch for all children in Georgia public schools.
It’s important to ensure Georgia children have the services they need, said Mindy Binderman, executive director of the Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students.
“Children’s most rapid and consequential brain growth happens in early childhood — at a rate of 1 million new neural connections formed every second. … I, too, worry about kids’ mental health, access to care, and education quality,” Binderman said.
GEEARS is pushing to preserve programs like Medicaid, which provides health insurance to low-income children, and Head Start, which provides early childhood education, in Georgia.
Rebecca Grapevine is a reporter covering public health in Atlanta for Healthbeat. Contact Rebecca at rgrapevine@healthbeat.org.
