THURSDAY, June 5, 2025 (HealthDay News) — A widespread decrease in measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination rates was seen after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a research letter published online June 2 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Ensheng Dong, Ph.D., from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and colleagues generated a standardized dataset with annual county-level vaccination rates for children from 2017 to 2024 for all states in the United States for which this information was available. Spatiotemporal trends in vaccination coverage were examined. The final dataset included at least one year of vaccination data for 2,237 counties across 38 states.

The researchers found a nationwide decline in vaccination rates during the COVID-19 pandemic, with considerable heterogeneity seen within and across states. The county-level mean vaccination rate decreased from 93.92 percent prepandemic to 91.26 percent postpandemic across 2,066 counties in 33 states with both prepandemic and postpandemic vaccination rates, representing a mean decline of 2.67 percent. During this period, 78 percent the 2,066 counties reported a decline in coverage. Only four states reported an increase in the median county-level vaccination rate.

“Our county-level dataset complements the state and national-level CDC data, confirming a widespread decline in MMR vaccination rates in the U.S. after the COVID-19 pandemic while revealing significant heterogeneity in vaccination patterns within and across states,” the authors write.

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