Addressing the Decline of Vaccination Rates of U.S. Students

Type: Toolkit
Topics: Health & Wellness, School Safety & Cybersecurity

May 01, 2022

Vaccination Toolkit Cover
A Toolkit for Educational Leaders

To address the issue of declining student vaccination rates resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, AASA has partnered with the Merck Foundation (MSD Inventing for Life) to support the development and distribution of a comprehensive toolkit for educational leaders.

This toolkit provides resources to support educational leaders in understanding and providing direction about how schools and districts can address the problem of vaccination declines among students.

Introduction

Data suggest that the percentage of children receiving required vaccinations (i.e., the seven-vaccine regimen required for entrance to public education) has decreased by 14% during the pandemic and related school closures. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “During the COVID-19 pandemic, children have missed routine well-child care and related vaccinations.

If [these] rates decline below levels to maintain herd immunity, dangerous outbreaks of preventable diseases could follow.” This toolkit is available to superintendents, school boards, executive staff, school-based administration and teachers, as well as families and community members. A major priority of this is to ensure that superintendents and other district leaders have the knowledge, skills, and resources to address this challenging national health issue.

Key principles underlying this initiative include:

  • Ensuring maximum distribution of the toolkit;
  • Promoting cross-institutional partnerships and communities of practice (including school districts, schools, state and local governments, health agencies, and community advocacy groups) to implement toolkit-related recommendations and strategies;
  • Disseminating vaccination rate updates and data; and
  • Sustaining the work beyond the one-year grant-funding cycle to ensure growing levels of vaccination rates within communities and regions (especially those most severely impacted by scarcity of access to available health services).

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