See states’ kindergarten vaccination rates—from highest to lowest

See states’ kindergarten vaccination rates—from highest to lowest

Even as cases of diseases such as measles rise, childhood vaccinations are declining, thanks to changes in public health policies and antivaccine sentiment, experts say

By Jackie Flynn Mogensen & Sanidhya Sharma edited by Claire Cameron

It’s back-to-school season. For most parents of the U.S.’s school-aged kids, that means filling out medical forms and making sure the children are up to date with their vaccinations . But this ritual is shifting: The 2025–2026 school year saw a record low number of kindergartners vaccinated for measles, polio, tetanus, and more. At the same time, more kids in this age group had exemptions from at least one vaccine that school year than at any other point in the past decade.

Meanwhile the diseases these vaccines protect against are making a comeback. Take measles , for example: The U.S. officially eliminated the disease in 2000 with the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. But in the past few years, that progress stalled, and measles is on the rise. So far this year, officials have recorded more than 2,500 measles cases in the U.S.—the most since the virus was wiped out in the U.S. 25 years ago.

We analyzed the latest vaccine data to better understand what states in the country are most at risk of an outbreak and how vaccination rates are changing among the U.S.’s schoolkids.

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More than 90 percent of U.S. kindergarteners still get the MMR vaccine. But according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, MMR vaccination rates among kindergarteners have fallen from about 95 percent to 92.4 percent in the past 10 years. The country saw similar declines for vaccines that protect against polio, hepatitis B, and diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis.