Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • OUTLOOK

Vaccination rates are falling, and it’s not just the COVID-19 vaccine that people are refusing

Society’s best defence against childhood diseases is waning. What needs to be done to help it recover?
  1. Michael Eisenstein

    1. Michael Eisenstein is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

An illustration of a boy and a girl holding an umbrella. Rain drops are viruses, only Covid-19 viruses penetrate the umbrella.

Credit: Oli Winward

Vaccines offer a potent armour against infectious diseases that once carried a heavy toll of mortality and morbidity, particularly among children. Gaps were already forming in that armour in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic. But amid stagnating vaccination rates, the pandemic acted like a shotgun, punching many more holes in humanity’s defences against preventable diseases such as measles.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 612, S44-S46 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-04341-9

This article is part of Nature Outlook: Children‘s health, an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content.

References

  1. Causey, K. et al. Lancet 398, 522–534 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Ho, L. L. et al. Int. J. Infect. Dis. 119, 201–209 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Li, M. et al. Vaccines 10, 1316 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Szilagyi, P. G. et al. Pediatrics 148, e2021052335 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Stoeckel, F., Carter, C., Lyons, B. A. & Reifler, J. Eur. J. Public Health 32, 636–642 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links