that chart of private school coverage is frightening! I wonder if there's any research as to whether the parents in those schools know these numbers. I would be pretty uncomfortable if I knew I was sending my kid to school with a high concentration of other kids who weren't vaccinated for something like measles.
That's a great question and I don't know the answer. I have not seen anything on that. I (strongly) expect that the availability of this information varies across states. In CA it is publicly available but you need to download a data set from the CDPH and look up your school. I don't know if a school is required to answer an inquiry from a parent. Related, Robert and I are following up his undergrad thesis with a study of which type of schools are most likely to have high levels of exemptions. Preview of preliminary results: conservative denomination Christian schools and non-religious private schools in wealthy areas are most likely to have more belief exemptions. (Probably no surprise there.) Among private schools, Catholic schools have relatively low levels of exemptions and high coverage rates. Those are preliminary results though and we need to dig deeper before offering full conclusions.
that chart of private school coverage is frightening! I wonder if there's any research as to whether the parents in those schools know these numbers. I would be pretty uncomfortable if I knew I was sending my kid to school with a high concentration of other kids who weren't vaccinated for something like measles.
That's a great question and I don't know the answer. I have not seen anything on that. I (strongly) expect that the availability of this information varies across states. In CA it is publicly available but you need to download a data set from the CDPH and look up your school. I don't know if a school is required to answer an inquiry from a parent. Related, Robert and I are following up his undergrad thesis with a study of which type of schools are most likely to have high levels of exemptions. Preview of preliminary results: conservative denomination Christian schools and non-religious private schools in wealthy areas are most likely to have more belief exemptions. (Probably no surprise there.) Among private schools, Catholic schools have relatively low levels of exemptions and high coverage rates. Those are preliminary results though and we need to dig deeper before offering full conclusions.