Zipfel Casey M, Garnier Romain, Kuney Madeline C, Bansal Shweta
Department of Biology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA.
Sci Data. 2020 Nov 18;7(1):401. doi: 10.1038/s41597-020-00742-5.
Once-eliminated vaccine-preventable childhood diseases, such as measles, are resurging across the United States. Understanding the spatio-temporal trends in vaccine exemptions is crucial to targeting public health intervention to increase vaccine uptake and anticipating vulnerable populations as cases surge. However, prior available data on childhood disease vaccination is either at too rough a spatial scale for this spatially-heterogeneous issue, or is only available for small geographic regions, making general conclusions infeasible. Here, we have collated school vaccine exemption data across the United States and provide it at the county-level for all years included. We demonstrate the fine-scale spatial heterogeneity in vaccine exemption levels, and show that many counties may fall below the herd immunity threshold. We also show that vaccine exemptions increase over time in most states, and non-medical exemptions are highly prevalent where allowed. Our dataset also highlights the need for greater data sharing and standardized reporting across the United States.
曾经被消灭的可通过疫苗预防的儿童疾病，如麻疹，正在美国各地卷土重来。了解疫苗豁免的时空趋势对于确定公共卫生干预措施以提高疫苗接种率以及在病例激增时预测脆弱人群至关重要。然而，先前可用的儿童疾病疫苗接种数据要么空间尺度过于粗略，无法应对这个空间异质性问题，要么仅适用于小地理区域，使得得出一般性结论不可行。在此，我们整理了美国各地的学校疫苗豁免数据，并提供了所有年份的县级数据。我们展示了疫苗豁免水平的精细空间异质性，并表明许多县可能低于群体免疫阈值。我们还表明，在大多数州，疫苗豁免随时间增加，并且在允许的地方非医疗豁免非常普遍。我们的数据集还强调了美国需要加强数据共享和标准化报告。
