Most Parents Would Remove their Child from a Daycare with Unvaccinated Kids

University of Michigan (UM) C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health found a large majority of parents — 74% – would remove their child from a daycare where other kids are unvaccinated.

For a national household survey, UM researchers interviewed parents (n=614) of 0-5 year old child in June 2014.

With almost all states enforcing vaccinations for children in daycare settings, 22 and 59% of parents agreed with the rule, respectively. UM investigators also noted 9 out of 10 participants didn’t support an unvaccinated child attending daycare without a waiver.

The researchers found less of a consensus when parents were introduced to the idea of mandatory vaccinations in home-based daycares (47% strongly agree, 24% agree).

Moreover, most parents (66%) believe they should know how many children do not have their shots, but only one-fourth of parents want the names of unvaccinated children.

While three-quarters of parents would remove their child from a daycare where 1 in 4 kids were not current with their vaccinations, 11% would only withdraw their child if an outbreak occurred, the authors reported.

Investigators believed their report had significant implications. Vaccinations, a hot-button topic, had been met with religious, medical, and philosophical arguments, and how to deal with those objections isn’t clear-cut. However, their report highlighted a common preference among parents: they want to know how many unvaccinated children are in their kid’s daycare, not necessarily the identities of those children.

"The bottom line is this poll shows that parents of young children have real concerns about whether vaccination standards are upheld in the daycare setting,” Sarah J. Clark, MPH, associate director of the National Poll on Children's Health and associate research scientist at UM’s Department of Pediatrics, said. “Parents should feel empowered to ask about daycare vaccination policies, such as how the daycare handles the situation of children who are not up-to-date, and whether they check children's vaccination status every year."