New Chalkbeat database spotlights wide gulfs in Colorado schools’ vaccination rates

A newly updated immunization database created by Chalkbeat reveals that Boulder remains a hotspot for the anti-vaccination movement, students in districts with racial and income diversity are more likely to get their shots and nearly half of schools in the database did a better job this year tracking students’ immunization records.

The database, which includes more than 1,200 schools in Colorado’s 30 largest districts, is the largest collection of school-by-school immunization data available in the state.

New rules that take effect Friday will make it harder for parents to opt their children out of shots and lay the groundwork for a more comprehensive state-run database expected to go live next spring. That database, available to the public, will include immunization and exemption rates for not just Colorado schools but also licensed child care providers.

The new rules come about two years after the passage of a state law that required schools to release immunization and exemption rates upon request and instructed the State Board of Health to determine how often parents should submit exemption forms.

Public health advocates say giving parents access to immunization data helps them gauge the risk of communicable disease outbreaks and make informed choices about where to send their children for school or child care. Colorado has one of the lowest immunization rates in the country, partly because it’s relatively easy to opt children out of shots.

There’s a huge push to make Colorado healthier and embed health and wellness into schools, said Stephanie Wasserman, executive director of the Colorado Children’s Immunization Coalition.

“Immunization is kind of foundational to all that,” she said.

Boulder County mom Lindsey Diamond, a vaccine advocate living in a community where many parents do not give their kids shots, agrees.

When considering where to send her 2-year-old son next fall, she asked every provider for their immunization rates. Diamond settled on a preschool where just one child was exempt from shots for medical reasons.

Elementary school is still a few years away, but she and her husband are keeping an eye on the rates at nearby schools in the St. Vrain Valley district—where immunization levels are all over the map.

“It’s been on our radar,” she said.

Data highlights

This is the second year Chalkbeat has built a database of immunization rates. A review of the new data reveals that many of last year’s findings persist. (See this story for charts illustrating the trends.)

Among the highlights:

  • Three-quarters of Boulder Valley’s 65 schools have exemption rates of 10 percent or higher and 13 schools have exemption rates of 25 percent or higher.
  • Outside of Boulder County, most districts have relatively few schools where large numbers of parents exempt their children from shots.
  • In many Colorado districts, exemption rates tend to be higher in some charter schools or schools with alternative philosophies such as Montessori or Waldorf.
  • Just over half of schools in Chalkbeat’s database have immunization rates of 90 percent or higher. (Immunization rates of 90-95 percent within a group help protect that group from disease, especially people who can’t be vaccinated because they are too young or have a medical condition.)
  • Districts where a large majority of schools have high immunization rates run the gamut, suggesting that socioeconomic status is not the only factor at work. The top district is Cherry Creek — which is often portrayed as wealthy but is increasingly diverse. Meanwhile, most schools in poorer districts such as Pueblo, Mapleton and Westminster also have high immunization rates.
  • In Denver, about 56 percent of more than 200 schools have immunization rates of 90 percent or better, and only six schools have exemption rates higher than 10 percent.
  • In neighboring Aurora, nearly two-thirds of more than 50 schools have immunization rates of 90 percent or better, and only one has an exemption rate higher than 10 percent.
  • Compliance rates—an indicator of how hard schools are working to make sure they have students’ immunization or exemption paperwork—improved at about 45 percent of schools in 2015-16.
  • Compliance rates worsened at just over 40 percent of schools—many of them high schools.

State health officials say the lower compliance rates at many high schools likely resulted from a rule change that took effect last school year requiring all high-schoolers to have a second dose of the chickenpox vaccine. As a result, some students who would have been considered fully immunized in previous years were out of compliance in 2015-16. Eventually, as more parents learn about the two-dose requirement, health officials expect the problem to resolve.

Asking for the data doesn’t mean you’ll get it

Although Colorado law requires the the release of immunization rates to the public, they can still be hard to get.

This year, Chalkbeat requested immunization and exemption rates in January. Several districts, however, declined to release them until March or April because district officials said they were waiting on fixes to a commonly used student data system where immunization information is housed.

But by late spring, even as most districts were reporting that the glitches had been fixed, there was still some pushback. For example, officials in the Lewis-Palmer district near Colorado Springs said they could offer only inaccurate data for their schools.

Later, they provided some updated information, but said it was only accurate for three of nine schools where a nurse had carefully tallied the rates and not relied on the student data system.

Next year, not only will the state health department compile immunization rates for the new statewide database, there will be a Dec. 1 due date for districts to submit the information.

“We’re already geared up for that,” said Julie Stephens, Lewis-Palmer’s public information officer.

While some school health leaders say they like the idea of sharing school immunization rates with the public, it can be a lot of extra work for school nurses.

Jean Lyons, nursing supervisor for Denver Public Schools, said she’s torn.

“I think we have to look at it as an opportunity to make our community healthy,” she said.

At the same time, she called the reporting requirements an unfunded mandate, saying, “I really empathize with the small districts that have fewer resources internally.”

Stricter requirements for opting out

In addition to the new state database, new immunization rules taking effect Friday will require parents who excuse their children from shots for personal or religious reasons to do so more often.

Starting in the 2016-17 school year, parents of K-12 children will be required to submit the exemption forms annually and parents of younger children will need to submit the forms up to five times prior to kindergarten. (There will be no change to the process for claiming a medical exemption from shots.)

Previously, parents often had to submit the forms only once during their child’s educational career.

Public health experts say the more stringent requirements will help reduce exemptions claimed out of convenience rather than conviction and help push down Colorado’s higher-than-average exemption rates. Parents opposed to the change have argued that they think carefully about their vaccine decisions and shouldn’t have to jump extra bureaucratic hurdles.

Other efforts to change the exemption process in Colorado have failed in recent months, highlighting the state’s vocal anti-vaccine constituency. Last spring, a bill that would have required parents to submit exemption forms centrally to the state health department instead of their child’s school drew emotional testimony and was eventually killed in the State House.