Children of color were less likely to be vaccinated than their white counterparts, data shows.
Children of color are less likely to be vaccinated than their white counterparts because of a lack of insurance and other barriers to inoculation, experts say.
Vaccines are one of the best ways to prevent life-threatening illnesses like polio, influenza and tetanus, said Rebecca Wurtz, a professor of health policy and management at the University of Minnesota.
“It’s life and death,” said Wurtz. Before children were widely vaccinated, “tens of thousands of children a year in the United States, in the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s and ’50s died from diseases that are safely preventable with vaccine.”
Yet New Jersey’s children were some of the lowest vaccinated in the nation, a rate that was especially low among children of color, according to data from the University of Minnesota’s State Health Access Data Assistance Center.
Just 51% of Black 3-year-olds in New Jersey were vaccinated, the second-worst rate in the nation, behind Nevada. And just 56% of Hispanic children statewide were vaccinated, making them the most under-vaccinated children nationwide compared to their peers. White children in New Jersey had a vaccination rate of 75%.
A note about the data: Not every state had vaccination figures for Black and Hispanic children because the percentage of these children in those states is too small.
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“We think of New Jersey as being a sophisticated modern state. It is surprising how these disparities show up in different states,” Wurtz said. “It means that there are hidden barriers to access that aren’t immediately obvious to us.”
Recent reports have shown a rising trend of parents opting out of vaccinating their children. Prior research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that these parents tend to have mothers who are white, educated and make over $75,000 a year. Under-vaccinated children tend to have mothers who are Black, do not have a college degree, and are low-income.
Wurtz said the barriers tend to be higher for children of color who are more likely to be low-income.
If a child is uninsured, they’re less likely to get vaccinated, Wurtz and other experts say.
“Access to health insurance coverage is really kind of a first step in being able to access care for a lot of people,” Robert Hest, a public health researcher at the University of Minnesota, said. “We know that there are long-running, persistent and consistent gaps in rates of health insurance coverage between... Black kids, Hispanic kids and their white counterparts.”
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Dr. Rosario Zambrano, a pediatrician in East Orange and Morristown, sees this in her practices.
Some parents come into her practices, Essex Pediatrics and Pediatrics of Morristown, lacking “insurance, getting their insurance dropped, they didn’t do their paperwork, something happens, and then they fall through the gap,” Zambrano said.
She said this is the case even though the state offers free vaccines through the Vaccine for Children program.
While the vaccine may be free, “you still have to pay for the doctor’s office visit, and people might not necessarily want to do that,” Zambrano said.
Some barriers go beyond insurance coverage.
Wurtz said that lack of reliable transportation and homelessness are other factors that cause children not to get vaccinated.
Zambrano said she has several families that are homeless, and “between going from here to there and the other place, they don’t have time, they can’t take their child for vaccines.”
According to Wurtz, childhood is the best and most important time to vaccinate children.
By the time children are 3 years old, they should have received many of the vaccines that will protect them for life, experts say.
“Part of the reason why childhood is so important is because we can get access to kids more easily at least in theory, and we also have entry to school as one way to enforce vaccination that we don’t have for adults,” Wurtz said. “They are at higher risk for those illnesses (measles and chickenpox) as kids in daycare and in school.”
It’s why Wurtz calls these barriers a “tragedy.”
“It means that Black and brown kids are at higher risk of death from diseases that in the modern world are easily preventable,” Wurtz said.
Stories by Amira Sweilem
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Amira Sweilem may be reached at asweilem@njadvancemedia.com.