Paul Throne, DrPH, MPH
Manager, Health Promotion and Communication
Office of Immunization and Child Profile | Washington Department of Health
CDC has released the 2016 National Immunization Survey (NIS) Childhood data, including Washington’s immunization rates. Many state vaccination rates are meeting state or national goals; however, this year there are no significant changes over last year. Nationally, there were significant decreases in rates for 3 doses of polio vaccine and 3 doses of hepatitis B vaccine, but Washington did not see these dips.
All of you have worked hard to achieve our current vaccination rates, but there is more work to be done to achieve and sustain a healthy community. For example, 91.1% of Washingtonians have one dose of MMR vaccine by age 35 months, but rates vary widely by local area, and there are pockets of unprotected people. We need at least a 95% MMR vaccination rate to maintain community immunity against measles. Nationally, and in our state, we’ve seen outbreaks of mumps in the past year. Please continue to stress the importance of MMR vaccination to protect against measles, mumps, and rubella.
A few highlights of the NIS Childhood 2016 data:
- Washington is better than national average for 7 out of 10 childhood vaccines.
- We’ve met national Healthy People 2020 targets for two vaccine series, and six others are very close.
- Like the rest of the country, we are lagging behind in meeting Healthy People 2020 goals for 2 shots of hepatitis A vaccine.
2016 NIS results for selected vaccines (ages 19 to 35 months)
≥ 4 DTaP: WA 85.8% National 83.4%
≥ 3 Polio: WA 93.0% National 91.9%
≥ 1 MMR: WA 91.1% National 91.1%
≥ 1 Hib: WA 87.8% National 81.8%
≥ 3 HepB: WA 89.5% National 90.5%
≥ 1 HepB birth dose: WA 74.3% National 71.7%
≥ 1 Varicella: WA 89.3% National 90.6%
≥ 4 PCV: WA 87.0% National 81.8%
≥ 2 HepA: WA 61.0% National 60.6%
≥ 1 Rotavirus: WA 77.4% National 74.1%
4:3:1:3:3:1:4 schedule: WA 75.7% National 70.7%
View the complete national and state 2016 NIS childhood data at CDC’s ChildVaxView web page.