New research, published in the journal Pediatrics, shows that 1-in-4 parents are hesitant about vaccinating their children for influenza.
Researchers analyzed more than 2,000 survey responses from parents of children between the ages of 6 months and 18 years.
While nearly 26 percent of parents said they were reluctant about getting flu shots for their kids, only 6 percent said they were hesitant about other routine childhood vaccinations. “We were very surprised by the level of hesitancy for influenza vaccine,” said Dr. Allison Kempe, MPH, MSPH, a professor of pediatrics-general pediatrics at the University of Colorado’s School of Medicine and the study’s lead author.
“The perceptions about the effectiveness of childhood vaccines and influenza vaccines were completely different,” Kempe told Healthline. “Seventy percent strongly agreed that routine childhood vaccines are effective, while only about a quarter of parents strongly agreed that influenza vaccines are effective, so those results were pretty surprising to us.”
