States Where Most Parents Won't Vaccinate Their Kids for COVID-19
Children ages 12 to 17 are eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccination in the U.S., but vaccine hesitancy among adults means many children likely won't receive a vaccination. In this report, we highlight the states with the highest rates of adults who won't get their kids vaccinated against COVID-19, and we explore some of the reasons for their vaccine skepticism.
Despite the COVID-19 vaccine being widely available in all U.S. states for months, large discrepancies remain in local inoculation rates.
Some states, such as Vermont, Massachusetts and Hawaii, have jabbed almost 90% of their 18-and-over populations with at least one dose of the vaccine. Meanwhile, states like Wyoming and West Virginia have seen less than 60% of adults get at least one dose.
But what about their kids?
With children ages 12 to 17 now having been eligible for the vaccine in all states since May, similar discrepancies in state vaccination rates have unfolded. And many of the adults in states where large percentages of the eligible population have stayed away from the needle appear just as hesitant to put their children anywhere near it.
Using the U.S. Census Bureau’s Weekly Household Pulse Survey, we examined the states with the highest percentage of households with children ages 12 to 17 that reported those children will “probably not” or “definitely not” get vaccinated for COVID-19.
All told, nearly 15% of U.S. households with children ages 12 to 17 are unlikely to vaccinate their children for COVID-19.
Click on image to enlarge in a new tab
In West Virginia, Wyoming and Montana, more than 30% of households with children ages 12-17 will "probably not" or "definitely not" vaccinate their children.
The map below illustrates the percentage of households in each state with children ages 12 to 17 who say that they will “probably not” or “definitely not” vaccinate those children for COVID-19.
Click on image to enlarge in a new tab
In all, there are 14 states where at least 20% of households with children ages 12-17 are unlikely to vaccinate those kids. Joining West Virginia, Wyoming and Montana on that list are:
- Alabama (26.0%)
- Iowa (24.8%)
- District of Columbia (24.6%)
- Oklahoma (23.2%)
- Arizona (22.6%)
- Ohio (22.3%)
- South Carolina (22.0%)
- Idaho (21.6%)
- Alaska (21.0%)
- North Dakota (20.7%)
- Illinois (20.0%)
At the other end of the spectrum, just 3.5% of households in New Jersey with children ages 12 to 17 say those children will probably or definitely not get vaccinated. More than 73% of such households in New Jersey have already vaccinated their 12 to 17-year-old kids, while another 36% of the remaining holdouts say they “definitely” will.
Other states reporting fewer than 10% of households that do not plan to vaccinate their children for COVID-19 include Connecticut (4.1%), Delaware (5.9%), Virginia (7.1%), Oregon (7.3%), New Mexico (8.5%), New York (8.6%), Massachusetts (9.2%) and Maryland (9.8%).
According to the survey, the top reason for “probably not” or “definitely not” vaccinating children ages 12 to 17 is concern over possible vaccine side effects for children. This was the top answer in all but four states and was 42% more common than the next most common reason given.
As of July 16th, more than 8.9 million U.S. children ages 12 to 17 had been vaccinated against COVID-19, with only 863 cases of serious side effects (0.009%). Hospitalization rates for COVID-19 among children ages 12 to 17 are 10 times higher for the unvaccinated than for the vaccinated.
Click on image to enlarge in a new tab
The second most popular reason for households being unlikely to vaccinate their children ages 12 to 17 was waiting to see if the vaccine is safe before giving it to the children in their household. The Pfizer vaccine, which remains the only vaccine children under 18 are eligible for, was granted full FDA approval on Aug. 23. Worldwide, more than 6 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered.
Another top reason cited by people who don’t want to vaccinate their children is that they generally don’t trust the COVID-19 vaccines altogether.
Many of the states where high percentages of households are unlikely to vaccinate their 12 to 17-year-olds are the same states exhibiting low vaccination rates among adults.
Of the 20 states with the highest percentage of households saying they will probably or definitely not vaccinate their children, 13 are among the 20 states with the lowest percentage of adults who have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
Meanwhile, of the 20 states with the lowest percentage of vaccine-hesitant parents, 14 are among the 20 states with the highest vaccination rates in adults.
Consistency was not present everywhere, however. The District of Columbia has the 13th-highest rate of adults with at least one dose of the vaccine (81.3%) but the 6th-highest rate of households that are unlikely to vaccinate their children (24.6%).
In Mississippi, only 60.9% of adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine (which ranks as the 49th lowest), but only 10.9% of households there are unlikely to vaccinate their children (which ranks as the 12th lowest).
Around 15% of U.S. households with children ages 12 to 17 are unlikely to vaccinate those children against COVID-19, saying they will either “probably not” or “definitely not” do so.
The unlikeliness of children ages 12 to 17 becoming vaccinated for COVID-19 varies widely from state to state, with many of the states that have lower vaccination rates among adults being the same states displaying hesitancy to vaccinate their children.
The data used for this report came from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, specifically Week 37 (September 1 through September 13), the most recent data available.
