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At a time when federal health officials are questioning or even abandoning long-held childhood vaccine recommendations, nearly 90% of Georgia parents believe the vaccines are safe, and more than 93% trust their pediatricians to guide them, according to a new survey.
Data was released this week from the Emory University Center for Child Policy from an online survey of 1,002 parents conducted by polling firm Ipsos between Oct. 30 and Nov. 24. Results found that 87.9% believe routine childhood vaccinations are safe.
Researchers released the data earlier than planned in the wake of last week’s decision by a federal immunization advisory panel to reverse a recommendation that all newborns be vaccinated against hepatitis B.
Lead author Dr. Stephen Patrick, a neonatalogist, said he was reassured that so many Georgia parents still support the vaccines.
“Despite all of this noise, Georgia parents have the same level of confidence in vaccines that they had a year ago,” Patrick said. “My worries as a clinician and a public health professional are that this is going to weaken people’s views … it doesn’t appear that that’s happened yet.”
Georgia parents appear to be in step with national trends, which show that “the vast majority of parents believe that vaccines are effective for protecting both their children and the community,” said Scott Thorpe, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Public Health Leadership, an advocacy group that works in four Southern states, including Georgia.
More than 70% of the parents surveyed said they strongly or somewhat support the hepatitis B vaccine at birth. Close to 13% said they somewhat or strongly oppose the newborn shot. Receiving it within 24 hours of birth is “highly effective in preventing infection in newborns,” according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, and 98% of children who receive the full three-dose series achieve full immunity to hepatitis B.
In Georgia, 72.7% of newborns received the vaccine within 24 hours of birth in 2021, with that number rising to 77.1% within three days of birth, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data for children born in 2021, the latest available. That’s down from a decade ago, when 83.8% of newborns got the shot within three days of birth.
Georgia’s numbers are close to but slightly lower than national rates. The state’s rate has also fallen from a decade ago.
The new recommendation, that doctors and parents engage in “shared decision making” about the vaccine, was approved Dec. 5 by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The move has sown confusion among parents, doctors, and hospitals, Patrick said. He and other medical providers already consult with parents about the newborn hepatitis B and other routine vaccinations, so the new recommendation will not change how he practices.
“There’s a conversation first, and there’s consent that is given, period,” Patrick said.
“That recommendation just broadly weakens our approach, and it gets confusing,” Patrick said. “This is just another narrative that inserts doubt into parents to something where we know it’s both safe and effective and prevents a pretty bad illness that is lifelong for children.”
The birth dose of hepatitis B has all but eliminated the disease in American children, with a 99% drop in pediatric infections since the birth dose was introduced in 1991. It helps protect people from complications from the disease, including cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Hepatitis B can spread easily through contact among family members and live on surfaces for up to a week. The birth dose has prevented more than 6 million hepatitis B infections and nearly 1 million hospitalizations, according to a CDC analysis.
As leaders like Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. question longstanding childhood vaccine schedules, researchers added new questions to the survey to measure parents’ knowledge of how insurers decide whether to pay for vaccines and parents’ willingness to pay out-of-pocket for the shots, Patrick said.
About two-thirds of parents reported not knowing that ACIP recommendations shape whether insurers will cover routine childhood vaccines.
That makes sense, Thorpe said, adding that parents should not be expected to understand the “inner workings” of a committee “created to provide an expert, data-driven approach to vaccine recommendations.”
Most parents said they would be willing to pay cash for a vaccine for their child if insurance did not cover it, or they could not obtain it for free through a public program. Sixty percent said they were very or somewhat likely to; 20% said they were somewhat or very unlikely to; and 19.8% remained neutral.
But the number willing to pay for children’s vaccines dropped to 47.6% for parents making less than $75,000 per year. It was higher (67.7%) for those making more than $75,000 per year.
“That raises this potential rising issue that if we see big changes from ACIP, and insurers follow, then we might start running into trouble, particularly with folks that are not high income,” Patrick said.
The overwhelming majority of parents (93.4%) trust their child’s doctor for vaccine information. They also broadly trust local, state, and federal health agencies to provide accurate safety information about childhood vaccines.
Here’s how many Georgia parents trust these entities either a great deal or somewhat, according to the survey:
- Their child’s doctor: 93.4%
- Georgia Department of Public Health: 83.8%
- Their county’s Department of Public Health: 80.9%
- CDC: 73.3%
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration: 71.17%
The findings about Georgia parents’ views on cost and trust are in line with national trends, Thorpe said, adding that many Georgia parents may skip vaccines for their children not due to misinformation alone, but because of logistical and cost barriers.
“Thousands of kindergartners in Georgia this year are neither up-to-date on vaccines nor claiming a religious exemption,” Thorpe said, suggesting their parents may have faced challenges in getting them to a medical provider in part due to cost.
“While it is encouraging that parents trust their child’s health care provider, that relationship isn’t helpful if parents lack the resources to afford a visit,” Thorpe said.
Rebecca Grapevine is a reporter covering public health in Atlanta for Healthbeat. Contact Rebecca at rgrapevine@healthbeat.org.
