According to an Associated Press analysis of nationwide state health department records, Alaska had the highest rate nationwide of parents opting kindergartners out of required vaccinations in 2010-2011.
Children entering public school in most states must be vaccinated against certain preventable diseases, among them polio, measles and whooping cough, but exemptions are available. Reasons for opting out are various, but public health officials start to worry if more than 5 percent of kids in a community aren't vaccinated.
The AP found that in 2010-2011, 9 percent of Alaska parents chose to opt out of vaccinating their kindergartners. Colorado came in second that year at 7 percent.
"If you delay, you're putting a child at risk," Gerri Yett, a nurse who manages Alaska's immunization program, told the AP.
The AP found the rate of exemptions is on the rise in more than half of US states, and that the states with the highest rates of parents opting out are in the West and Upper Midwest. More than half of states have seen at least a slight rise in the rate of vaccine exemptions in the past five years, with Alaska landing among the 10 states with exemption increases greater than 1.5 percent over the five year period between 2006-2007 and 2010-2011.
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