Читать книгу Infants and Children in Context - Tara L. Kuther - Страница 207

Failure to vaccinate is a preventable risk to infants’ health. Over the past 60 years, childhood diseases such as measles, mumps, and whooping cough have declined dramatically because of widespread immunization of infants. A vaccine is a small dose of inactive virus that is injected into the body to stimulate the production of antibodies to guard against the disease. Vaccines control infectious diseases that once spread quickly and killed thousands of people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that infants be vaccinated against most vaccine-preventable diseases by the time they are 2 years of age. Currently, 10 vaccines are included in the standard recommendations for children at specific ages between birth and 10 years. Immunization rates vary by vaccine, but overall vaccination coverage in the United States tends to be high. For example, in 2016, 91% of children 19 to 35 months of age were vaccinated for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) (National Center for Health Statistics, 2018). However, the percentage of children who have received no vaccines has increased over the past 2 decades, from .3% of 19- to 35-month-old children in 2001 to 1.3% for children born in 2015 (Hill, Elam-Evans, Yankey, Singleton, & Kang, 2018).

Although only a small minority of children are unvaccinated, highly contagious diseases, such as measles, can spread quickly among them. For example, in 2019, nearly 900 cases of measles were reported, largely confined to geographic areas where vaccination is less common (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019b). The Applying Developmental Science feature examines some of the reasons parents cite for not vaccinating their children.