Parents' role as advocates for and against childhood vaccination: Findings from a nationally representative survey.
Parents who encourage childhood vaccination far outnumber those who discourage it
Parents' role as advocates for and against childhood vaccination: Findings from a nationally representative survey.
In 2025, the US recorded the highest number of measles cases in 25 years, signaling an urgent need for renewed attention to increasing childhood vaccination coverage.
To identify future intervention partners, we sought to understand parents' role in advocating for and against childhood vaccines.
A nationally representative sample of 1,315 parents of children ages 9-12 years participated in our online survey about vaccine advocacy behaviors in 2025.
more parents encourage vaccination than steer others away from it
These estimates include a small proportion of parents (6%) who reported both behaviors.
Parents with higher confidence in the importance of vaccines for their child's health were more likely to be encouragers and less likely to be discouragers (both p < .05).
Encouragers (n = 477) most often advocated for measles (50%) or seasonal flu vaccines (44%).
These parents most often engaged family members and close friends, using strategies such as sharing vaccine experiences (47%), information about vaccine effectiveness (38%), and advice or opinions about vaccines (35%).
Findings of our nationally representative study suggest that parents who encourage routine vaccination far outnumber those who discourage it.
Given that encouragers often advocate for measles vaccine, future efforts to increase vaccination coverage should consider ways to partner with parent advocates to stem the alarming resurgence of this disease.