Vaccine attitudes, concerns, and information sources reported by parents of young children: results from the 2009 HealthStyles survey

Abstract

Objective: To describe the vaccine-related attitudes, concerns, and information sources of US parents of young children.

Methods: We calculated weighted proportions and 95% confidence intervals for vaccine-related attitudes, concerns, and information sources of parents with at least 1 child aged 6 years or younger who participated in the 2009 HealthStyles survey.

Results: The overall response rate for the survey was 65% (4556 of 7004); 475 respondents were parents or guardians ("parents") of at least 1 child aged 6 years or younger. Among those respondents, nearly all (93.4%) reported that their youngest child had or would receive all recommended vaccines. The majority of parents reported believing that vaccines were important to children's health (79.8%) and that they were either confident or very confident in vaccine safety (79.0%). The vaccine-related concern listed most often by parents was a child's pain from the shots given in 1 visit (44.2%), followed by a child getting too many vaccines at 1 doctor's visit (34.2%). When asked to list their most important sources of information on vaccines, the most common response was a child's doctor or nurse (81.7%).

Conclusions: To maintain and improve on the success of childhood vaccines in preventing disease, a holistic approach is needed to address parents' concerns in an ongoing manner. Listening and responding in ways and with resources that address specific questions and concerns could help parents make more informed vaccination decisions.