by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., Childrens Health Defense:
Public support for policies that allow parents of schoolchildren to opt out of vaccinating their kids for medical, religious and personal or philosophical reasons is growing, according to a survey conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
Public support for policies that allow parents of schoolchildren to opt out of vaccinating their kids for medical, religious and personal or philosophical reasons is growing, according to a survey conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
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The center conducted a nationally representative opinion panel from Jan. 3-5, 2025, of 1,077 U.S. adults, and compared the results to those from its own 2019 survey. The 2019 survey was also nationally representative and involved 2,344 U.S. adults in April and May of 2019.
The 2025 survey had a sampling error margin of +/- 5.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The 2019 survey had a sampling error margin of +/- 2.8 percentage points.
A report released Jan. 28 describing the differences between the 2019 and 2025 surveys revealed that roughly two-thirds of U.S. adults (63%) in 2025 “somewhat or strongly support” a law allowing parents in their state to choose not to vaccinate their children for medical reasons. In 2019, about a third (36%) supported such a policy.
In 2019, only 17% of U.S. adults said they would support parental choice not to vaccinate their children for personal or philosophical reasons. By 2025, that number had doubled, with 35% of U.S. adults saying they would support school vaccination opt-out options for personal or philosophical reasons.
Public support for religious exemptions to school vaccine requirements also doubled, from 20% in 2019 to 39% in 2025.
Only 24% of U.S. adults ‘strongly support’ school vaccine requirements
The survey results also revealed that only 52% of U.S. adults support having their state require vaccination as a condition of school attendance.
That’s a nearly 20% drop in just six years, the researchers noted. The drop in public support was “across all political groups,” the Annenberg Public Policy Center wrote in its report.
Moreover, the percentage of U.S. adults who “strongly support” school vaccination requirements has dropped significantly from nearly half (47%) in 2019 to just under a quarter (24%) in January 2025.
Certain vaccinations are required for school attendance in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., according to the National Council of State Legislatures (NCSL).
The requirement is intended to protect children who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, the Annenberg Public Policy Center said.
Although all states offer exemptions from school vaccination requirements for medical reasons, not every state allows religious or philosophical exemptions, according to the NCSL.
Thirty states and Washington, D.C., provide religious exemptions from school vaccination requirements for religious reasons. Thirteen states allow exemptions for personal or philosophical reasons.
The Annenberg Public Policy Center did not immediately respond to The Defender’s comment request.
Other recent polls show growing mistrust of CDC, FDA
The same day that the Annenberg Public Policy Center released its results, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) published polling results on similar topics.
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