HMN 2025: How Coverage for routine childhood vaccines stays under prepandemic ranges

Three years after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, protection for chosen routine childhood vaccines remained under prepandemic ranges, in keeping with a research published on-line March 26 in Pediatrics.

Malini B. DeSilva, M.D., from HealthPartners Institute in Bloomington, Minnesota, and colleagues examined rotavirus; diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis; and pneumococcal conjugate vaccine protection amongst infants born between Jan. 1, 2018, and May 31, 2023, and assessed components related to vaccine uptake. Data have been included for 395,143 infants.

The researchers discovered that at 5 months of age, protection for 2 doses of all three vaccines was 87.8% and 80.8% in February 2020 and October 2023, respectively. At 12 months, vaccine sequence completion was highest in January 2020 and decrease in October 2023 (92.3% and 89.6%, respectively). Having a caregiver whose main language was not English or Spanish, non-Hispanic Black race, and Medicaid have been components related to decrease vaccine uptake.

“Three years after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, protection for chosen routine childhood immunizations remained under prepandemic ranges,” the authors write. “Although our findings spotlight inhabitants teams for whom targeted interventions are wanted to enhance vaccine protection, additional understanding of how these components could also be associated to different sociodemographic and cultural components, availability of care, structural boundaries to accessing care, and vaccine confidence, is required.”