Vaccination impact on childhood infectious disease
April 29, 2025
Summary: Near-universal preschool vaccination had made many pediatric infectious diseases exceedingly rare. The risk of these diseases rises with a decline in vaccination rates.
I took a week off, and this week am republishing slightly revised posts from the past year. I’ll return with new posts on Monday, May 5.
Source: Scott, D Vox.com November 26, 2024
I especially liked this chart about the implications of childhood vaccinations published by vox.com last fall. Here’s a link to the accompanying article. Childhood vaccination rates declined a small amount in children born in 2020 and 2021, raising the possibility that we will see a return of epidemics of some of these diseases. The ongoing measles epidemic and recent deaths of infants from whooping cough could be a worrisome harbinger of the resurgence of pediatric infectious diseases.
Most of these childhood diseases are now so rare that many pediatricians and family physicians have never seen them. As a medical student and a physician, I never saw a case of measles, diphtheria, or rubella. Most physicians a generation older than me never saw a case of smallpox, which was eradicated in the US in 1949 and the world in 1977. Few took care of a case of paralytic polio. There was one case in the US in the 2002 imported from abroad; the previous imported case was in 1993.) Our kids had chickenpox when they were under 6, but our grandkids have not, nor have any of their classmates in their schools to our knowledge .
Here’s a link to a post from last fall about how I was influenced by people suffering long-term complications rubella and polio.
Implications for employers:
Pediatric vaccines are one of the few medical interventions that improve individual and population health AND lower health care costs.
Pediatric infectious diseases cause a large amount of productivity loss as parents stay home to care for their sick children; vaccinations decrease time away from work.
Employers can ask their carriers for reporting on pediatric vaccination rates, and educate members that childhood vaccinations are available without cost sharing.