Date of Conferral

2021

Degree

Doctor of Public Health (DrPH)

School

Public Health

Advisor

Diana Naser

Abstract

Childhood vaccines have been a source of heated debates between both opponents and proponents of vaccination. Childhood immunizations have proven to be effective and save lives, but antivaccine movements continue. The purpose of this retrospective cross-sectional quantitative study was to determine if there was a significant difference in child measles vaccine uptake based on provider facility type and census region, after adjusting for age and education of mother, for the years 2003–2012, pre-and-post 2007 media coverage deeming vaccines unsafe, and for the years 2013–2017, pre-and-post exposure to measles at Disneyland in 2014–2015 for children aged 19–35 months. The social ecological model served as the framework for this study. The population that was used in the ChildVaxView database were children 19–35 months of age. Ordinal logistic regression and odds ratio were used for statistical analyses and to identify associations with child vaccine uptake and media coverage. Results showed a significant relationship between facility type (AOR 0.70, p = .011), census region (OR < .001 and AOR < .001), and mothers with higher education were more likely to vaccinate (OR = 2.24); age of mother (OR = 2.56, p = .022) and post media coverage had a significantly lower odds of vaccination (OR 0.81, p = .009). Findings suggest that more education is needed for parents/guardians regarding immunization safeness to achieve herd immunity. This research could potentially benefit stakeholders in creating interventions that target the variables examined in this study. Positive social change implications include the increase of childhood immunization rates, to increase the herd immunity of children in the United States.

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