Education

Fewer Oregon kindergarteners receive school-required vaccines, worrying state health officials

Oregon Public Broadcasting | By Rob Manning

Published May 16, 2024 at 6:06 PM PDT

FILE: Vaccines at a pop-up clinic held at McDaniel High School in Northeast Portland, Feb. 8, 2023. The catch-up vaccination clinic, offered in conjunction with Portland Public Schools and Multnomah County’s Education Service District, aimed to provide childhood vaccines for youth 5-19.

Federal data show that Oregon’s exemption rates are second-highest in the country, behind only Idaho.

A growing share of Oregon kindergartners is not fully immunized against common childhood diseases. The Oregon Health Authority said Thursday that 8.8% of kindergarten students have at least one nonmedical vaccine exemption, with 86.4% of Oregon kindergartners receiving all of the required vaccines.

According to a presentation last March from Stacy de Assis Matthews, the immunization school law coordinator at OHA’s Oregon Immunization Program, about 650,000 children in the state are covered by vaccine requirements addressing 11 diseases.

OHA officials expressed concern Thursday about the low rates of vaccination, because they could put school children at heightened risk of becoming ill.

“The concern is that a highly contagious disease, such as measles, will be introduced to a school that doesn’t have high immunization rates and that students will become sick,” Matthews said in a written statement.

According to school-level data, more than 70 schools in Oregon had nonmedical exemption rates of at least 20%, including a number of charter and private schools.

OHA spokesperson Jonathan Modie said in an email to OPB that to achieve “herd immunity,” schools should have immunization rates of at least 95%. Modie said such rates were needed to “reduce the chance of an outbreak of disease in a school or community.”

Oregon’s exemption rates have gone up in each of the last three years, from 6.9% in 2022, to 8.1% in 2023, to this year’s exemption rate of 8.8%. Oregon has had very low exemption rates in the past, about 1% from the late 1980s until the early 2000s, according to OHA historical data. Rates steadily rose over the last 20-plus years to the current highs.

Rates vary significantly from county to county, from a low of 4.8% in Washington County to highs of more than 20% in Gilliam and Josephine counties. In Multnomah County, the exemption rate was 7.3%.

According to the most recent federal data, only Idaho had a higher percentage of kindergartners lacking the four vaccines typically required for school attendance. Idaho had more than 12% of its youngest students missing at least one required vaccine.