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Vaccination Rates and Disparities in Michigan

Vaccination Rates and Disparities in Michigan

This page outlines vaccination rates and disparities for Michigan’s children, adolescents, adults, and pregnant people populations.

 

VACCINATION COVERAGE

Vaccination coverage is the estimated percentage of people who have received specific vaccines6. Health departments all over the United States monitor vaccination coverage to understand how well communities are protected from vaccine-preventable diseases. Vaccination coverage information is used to identify areas and groups with lower vaccination coverage so public health departments, health care partners, and schools can take action to help improve vaccination coverage and protect everyone from vaccine-preventable diseases.

Without robust vaccination rates and coverage, children, families, and communities are at risk of life-threatening disease, outbreaks, and disruptions to daily life. Reliable, timely and accurate data is key to a robust immunization infrastructure. Public health departments must be able to access real-time and historical data to determine who has been vaccinated, to address unmet vaccination needs, to plan future immunization efforts, and to evaluate previous efforts.

Local, state, and federal health departments use surveys and other data sources such as immunization information systems (IISs) to estimate vaccination coverage and identify where additional efforts are needed to increase vaccination coverage.6

 

In efforts to provide real-time up-to-date information around vaccination coverage, please visit visit the links below.

DISPARITIES IN VACCINATION RATES

Although significant progress against vaccine-preventable diseases has been made in the United States, there remain significant gaps in vaccination coverage that contribute to preventable morbidity and mortality each year.

Vaccines can prevent illness BUT are only effective if they reach a majority of the population at risk. Disparities in vaccination coverage by race, ethnicity, gender, geography, and other demographic characteristics reflect underlying health inequities in the United States that contribute to the gaps in vaccination efforts and rates.15 Racism, employment, housing, education, and transportation, among other social determinants of health, contribute to these health inequities.15

Below is a snapshot of the three biggest factors related to the vaccination gap:16

  • Health Insurance card graphic

    Health Insurance

    Less than half (48.3 percent) of children with no insurance received the full series of recommended vaccines, compared to children with Medicaid coverage (65.6 percent) and to those with private insurance (78.3 percent).

  • Race and Ethnicity graphic

    Race & Ethnicity

    Black, non-Hispanic children (64.7 percent) and Hispanic children (66.3 percent) were the least likely to receive the recommended vaccines, compared to White non-Hispanic children (74.7 percent) and Asian non-Hispanic (74.2 percent).
  • Piggy bank image

    Poverty Status

    62.5 percent of children below the poverty level had received the recommended vaccines series, compared to the overall 74.7 percent of children who had received the full series.

For more information related to disparities in vaccination coverage and to understand barriers to routine childhood immunizations access the March of Dimes April 2022 survey.17