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The vaccination rate for California kindergartners went down slightly last school year, including in San Diego County, after hitting a record high the previous year.
Why this matters
California requires kindergartners to be inoculated for nine diseases before they start school. The goal is to prevent the spread of contagious diseases that have been rare in recent years.
One reason for the decline: Medical exemptions are increasing. Statewide, the rate of students with medical exemptions more than tripled since the 2015-16 school year. The rate in San Diego County increased sixfold.
Although medical exemptions represented a small portion of the overall student population last school year — less than 1 percent in California and slightly more than 1 percent in San Diego County — the increase has some concerned.
Dr. Dean Sidelinger, the county’s child health medical officer, said the number of children who need medical exemptions should be small, so he questions what’s behind the increase.
“Is it truly more kids who need a medical exemption, or is it that providers are getting more permissive in giving these medical exemptions?” Sidelinger said.
To start school, kindergartners need vaccinations for diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox. Parents can get medical exemptions for their children if they have had allergic reactions to vaccines in the past or other health conditions.
The state doesn’t specify what qualifies for a medical exemption from vaccinations. Doctors make those determinations.
Click here to search kindergarten vaccination rates in San Diego County from 2014-2018.
A spokeswoman for state Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, said he may propose legislation that would change rules for medical exemptions if the upward trend continues. Pan, a physician, authored the 2015 law that banned personal belief exemptions. It’s considered one of the strictest in the nation and prohibits parents from citing religious or other non-medical objections to avoid vaccinating their children.
The senator’s 2015 legislation was prompted by a measles outbreak that infected more than 100 Californians and was traced to an unvaccinated 11-year-old visiting Disneyland.
Sidelinger said although vaccination rates dipped slightly last school year, they remain higher than when personal belief exemptions were allowed, and that is a positive.
The state rate was 95.1 percent, down half of a percentage point from the previous year, while San Diego County’s rate of 93.2 percent was down more than 1 percentage point.
But if the decline continues, Sidelinger said that could become a problem.
“If it looks like it’s a pattern, we’ll have to redouble our efforts in getting the word out, providing education and making sure that people are receiving the vaccines that they should,” he said.
The five schools in San Diego County with the lowest vaccination rates were all charters: Valiant Academy of Southern California, Inspire Charter School South, Pathways Academy Charter, Learning Latitudes Charter and Compass Charter Schools of San Diego. More than 70 percent of the kindergartners in those schools were missing one or more of the required vaccines.
The California Charter Schools Association has no specific stance on vaccinations but wants parents “to follow the law,” said Michelle Anderson, the association’s regional manager in San Diego and Orange County.
One way parents can avoid vaccinating their children is by homeschooling them or enrolling them in independent study programs that have no classroom instructions. The number of these exemptions in the county also is on the rise.
The purpose of vaccination requirements is to protect students in classrooms interacting with each other frequently, Sidelinger said. But he is a pediatrician and said he would like to see that protection for all children.
“I would love to see all kids get vaccines, even if they’re homeschooled,” he said.
For the current school year, vaccination data must be reported to the state by Nov. 1. The results will be available next year.
Related:
“Kindergartner vaccinations rising in San Diego County after state law change”
April 28, 2017
“Record number of whooping cough cases in San Diego County despite immunization”
Dec. 22, 2015
“California legislature passes vaccine bill”
June 30, 2015
“Fewer vaccinations threaten San Diego’s collective immunity”
Jan. 29, 2015
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| All Staff Percentages are based on 15 total survey responses. The numbers include full-time and part-time staff, full-time fellows and full-time and part-time interns. | Newsroom Percentages are based on 15 completed survey responses to this question. | Business Percentages are based on 15 completed survey responses to this question. | |||
| Gender Identity | Gender Identity | Gender Identity | |||
| Women | 80% | Women | 82% | Women | 75% |
| Men | 20% | Men | 18% | Men | 25% |
| Sexual Orientation | Sexual Orientation | Sexual Orientation | |||
| Straight | 87% | Straight | 82% | Straight | 100% |
| LGBTQ-identifying | 7% | LGBTQ-identifying | 7% | ||
| Not specified | 7% | Not specified | 7% | ||
| Speak a language beyond English at home | 33% | Speak a language beyond English at home | 18% | Speak a language beyond English at home | 75% |
| Race/Ethnicity | Race/Ethnicity | Race/Ethnicity | |||
| White | 67% | White | 73% | White | 50% |
| Hispanic or Latinx | 20% | Two or more races | 18% | Hispanic or Latinx | 50% |
| Two or more races | 13% | Hispanic or Latinx | 9% | ||
| Age | Age | Age | |||
| 20-29 | 40% | 20-29 | 45% | 20-29 | 25% |
| 30-39 | 47% | 30-39 | 45% | 30-39 | 50% |
| 60 or older | 13% | 60 or older | 9% | 60 or older | 25% |
* The percentages in the charts have been rounded and may not add up to 100.
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Lorie Hearn is the chief executive officer, editor and founder of inewsource. She founded inewsource in the summer of 2009, following a successful reporting and editing career in newspapers. She retired from The San Diego Union-Tribune, where she had been a reporter, Metro Editor and finally the senior editor for Metro and Watchdog Journalism. In addition to department oversight, Hearn personally managed a four-person watchdog team, composed of two data specialists and two investigative reporters. Hearn was a Nieman Foundation fellow at Harvard University in 1994-95. She focused on juvenile justice and drug control policy, a natural course to follow her years as a courts and legal affairs reporter at the San Diego Union and then the Union-Tribune.
Hearn became Metro Editor in 1999 and oversaw regional and city news coverage, which included the city of San Diego’s financial debacle and near bankruptcy. Reporters and editors on Metro during her tenure were part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories that exposed Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham and led to his imprisonment.
Hearn began her journalism career as a reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times, a small daily outside of Philadelphia, shortly after graduating from the University of Delaware. During the decades following, she moved through countless beats at five newspapers on both coasts.
High-profile coverage included the historic state Supreme Court election in 1986, when three sitting justices were ousted from the bench, and the 1992 execution of Robert Alton Harris. That gas chamber execution was the first time the death penalty was carried out in California in 25 years.
In her nine years as Metro Editor at the Union-Tribune, Hearn made watchdog reporting a priority. Her reporters produced award-winning investigations covering large and small local governments. The depth and breadth of their public service work was most evident in coverage of the wildfires of 2003 and then 2007, when more than half a million people were evacuated from their homes.
Managing Editor: Laura Wingard, laurawingard@inewsource.org
Laura Wingard is the managing editor at inewsource. She has been an editor in San Diego since 2002, working at The San Diego Union-Tribune, KPBS and now inewsource. At the Union-Tribune, she served in a variety of roles including as enterprise editor, government editor, public safety and legal affairs editor, and metro editor. She directed the newspaper’s award-winning coverage of the October 2007 wildfires and the 2010 disappearance of Poway teenager Chelsea King. She also oversaw reporting on San Diego’s pension crisis.
For two years, Wingard was news and digital editor at KPBS, overseeing a team of four multimedia reporters and two web producers. She also was the KPBS liaison with inewsource and collaborated with inewsource chief executive officer and editor Lorie Hearn on investigative work by both news organizations.
Wingard also worked at the Las Vegas Review-Journal as the city editor and as an award-winning reporter covering the environment and politics. She also was the assistant managing editor for metro at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside. She earned her bachelor’s degree at California State University, Fullerton, with a double major in communications/journalism and political science.
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Racino has worked as a reporter and database analyst for News21; as a photographer, videographer and reporter for the Columbia Missourian; as a project coordinator for the National Freedom of Information Coalition and as a videographer and editor for Verizon Fios1 TV in New York. He received his master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 2012.
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