BACKGROUND:
Parents are responsible for making vaccine decisions that affect their children. In making these decisions, the school system has the potential to play an important role, whether by directly offering immunization services, maintaining immunization records, or providing an incentive for up-to-date immunizations through the enforcement of school entry laws.

OBJECTIVE:
Describe vaccination-related beliefs and behaviors of parents, stratified by the type of school their child attends.

METHOD:
We analyzed data from the 2003 HealthStyles survey. We described the vaccine-related beliefs of parents in six different areas (vaccine safety concerns, importance, trust, information sources, laws and exemptions, and sociodemographics) stratified by type of school a respondent’s youngest child attends.

RESULT:
Survey response rate was 69%. 1358 respondents had at least one child in school. Overall, 53% reported an annual household income of $50,000 or higher, 58% were between the ages of 30 and 44, and 71% were white. The type of school attended by their youngest child was: 79% public, 13% private, 3% homeschool, and 5% charter/other. Overall, 72% of parents believed that vaccines are very safe, and 86% believed that vaccines are very important to their child’s health. However, these proportions differed significantly (p<0.05) depending on the youngest child’s school type. Homeschooling parents had the lowest proportion of respondents reporting that vaccines were very safe (51%) or very important (56%).

CONCLUSION:
Although most parents in this survey believed that vaccines are safe and important, a sizeable minority of parents reported concerns. The level of concern differed depending on the school type of the respondent’s youngest child. An opportunity exists for public health professionals to work through various educational settings to provide information tailored to reflect differences in parental beliefs and concerns.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Describe the vaccine-related beliefs and behaviors of parents of children in a variety of educational settings in the 2003 HealthStyles survey.