Pandemic accelerated Arizona’s years-long decline in childhood vaccination rates

November 28 2022

By: Shaena Montanari

Read the full story on AZ Mirror

The impact of missed preventative medical care during the pandemic is beginning to emerge in the form of drastic declines in childhood vaccination rates among Arizona youth, now at lower levels than at any point in the past decade.

The plummeting rates follow a years-long decline in immunizations among Arizona students overall—one that has put residents of all ages at heightened risk of infection from largely preventable communicable diseases.

The trend is compounded, experts contend, by a reluctance from the Arizona Department of Health Services to address rising rates of personal belief vaccine exemptions. The Arizona Legislature, meanwhile, passed a law to limit the ability of health regulators to require certain vaccines for school attendance.