School vaccination, vaccine exemption rates now online

   The state has a new way for parents and guardians to look up vaccination and vaccine exemption rates for their children’s school or child care facility. The department’s school and child care immunization data website offers information by child care facility, school and district, and users can search for and sort data according to their needs.
    The website is cohealthdata.dphe.state.co.us/Data/Details/1.
    “Until now, the only school immunization data available from the state was based on a sample of 350 kindergartners,” said Dr. Larry Wolk, executive director and chief medical officer at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. “The new numbers represent almost a million children in Colorado schools and child care facilities.”
    For 2016-2017, the department collected immunization and exemption data from 1,801 K-12 schools representing more than 850,000 students.
    On average, for each vaccine:
    —96.3 percent of students were in compliance with school immunization rules.
    —93.4 percent of students had received all age-appropriate doses.
    —2.6 percent of students claimed an exemption.
    —0.3 percent had a plan in place to get immunized.
    Personal exemptions made up 88.1 percent of all school exemptions for the 2016-2017 school year. Religious exemptions accounted for 7.4 percent, and medical exemptions were 4.5 percent.
    The department also collected immunization and exemption data from 1,547 preschools and child care facilities representing more than 100,500 children.

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