The influence of local political trends on childhood vaccine completion in North Carolina
| Autor: | Salma Syed, Cierra Buckman, Dmitry Tumin, Indran C. Liu, Lindsay Cortright |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Health (social science)
media_common.quotation_subject 03 medical and health sciences Politics 0302 clinical medicine History and Philosophy of Science State (polity) Voting Political science North Carolina Humans 030212 general & internal medicine Enforcement Child health care economics and organizations media_common Government Vaccines Schools 030503 health policy & services Vaccination humanities Democracy Voter registration Demographic economics 0305 other medical science |
| Zdroj: | Social sciencemedicine (1982). 260 |
| ISSN: | 1873-5347 |
| Popis: | Background In North Carolina (NC), a political swing state that permits both medical and religious exemptions to school vaccination, rapid changes in the electorate have coincided with a vigorous political debate over vaccine laws and an increase in the number of exemptions claimed from vaccine requirements. Objective We aimed to determine whether county-level changes in political affiliation, determined from publicly available voting records, were associated with changes in the rate of vaccine exemptions reported at kindergarten entry in NC. Methods We analyzed data from the 2009–2010 to the 2016–2017 school years for each of 100 NC counties. We used NC State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement data to track voter registration trends at the county level, comparing the percent of voters registered as Republican, Democrat, or other (mostly unaffiliated). Vaccination exemption rates were obtained via the NC DHHS and represented a percentage of the cohort entering kindergarten in that year. Results Statewide, the rate of religious vaccine exemptions increased from 0.68% in 2009–2010 to 1.10% in 2016–2017. On multivariable analysis including 800 county-years, a 1% increase in voters with neither Republican nor Democratic affiliation was associated with 0.04% increase in the county's vaccine exemption rate. Conclusions In NC, the increase in vaccine exemption rates was primarily associated with an increasing share of voters affiliating with neither major party. This finding suggests mistrust in social institutions, including both government and medicine, extends beyond the platforms of traditional political parties. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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