In 2019, 8 in 10 Americans agreed with this. By 2023, it was 7 in 10 adults.

Modern children in the United States rarely get serious infectious diseases like polio or measles, which may make the childhood vaccination schedule seem over-the-top or unnecessary. However, the reason these diseases are uncommon today is because of vaccines.

88% of American adults expressed confidence in the MMR vaccine, according to the Pew Research Center. This is identical to the percentage of American adults who said this in 2019.

Roughly 91% of American teens were up to date on these vaccines in 2019.

In 2021, about 1 in 4 households in the U.S. missed or delayed a healthcare visit because of the pandemic — including teens who were due for vaccines — but by 2023, vaccination rates for these illnesses had “caught back up” to 2019 levels in adolescents.

In the 2022-2023 school year, the percentage of kindergarten children who enrolled in school using a vaccine exemption for the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine instead of getting vaccinated was the highest ever reported in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 250,000 kindergarteners that year would have been at risk for measles infection in the event of an outbreak. Vaccination rates in this age group fell further in 2023-2024.

In 2025, there has been a multistate measles outbreak.

It’s better to prevent infection in the first place than to allow a child to become sick and then try to treat the infection.

Children’s immune systems are not fully developed. Vaccines help train their immune system to identify and fight off viruses and bacteria that cause infection before serious harm, complications or death occur. Over the last 50 years, global immunization efforts have prevented roughly 150 million deaths, including 101 million infant deaths.

A child’s immune system is already exposed to about 2,000 to 6,000 germs (also called “antigens”) per day. That is significantly more than those introduced by any combination of vaccines on the recommended vaccine schedule.

The vaccine schedule was created to balance the earliest possible time to provide protection, the age the child is at the highest risk for each disease, and how long a child’s immune system takes to provide optimal protection after a vaccination. Lots of parents wonder: Isn’t it better to space them out? Scientists have investigated this very concern and found there is no scientific evidence to support building in more time between shots or for delivering them one at a time.

Vaccines are created for commonly occurring diseases that put people at risk for long-term health consequences and/or death. During testing, scientists study these questions: Does the vaccine work, is it safe, and how is the immune system responding to it? Vaccines are not approved until they pass rigorous safety standards and have been tested on thousands of volunteers.

The Food and Drug Administration, CDC, and other federal agencies monitor vaccine safety on an ongoing basis.

It is normal and expected to have mild side effects from vaccination. It’s important to remember that being unvaccinated may also have side effects: Serious illness or death.

Out of 1 million doses of a vaccine given, only one to two people may have a severe allergic reaction.

Children receive a lot of vaccines in early childhood, which is also when the symptoms of autism often begin to become apparent. Although these can happen at the same time, they are not related.

The original study which claimed that the MMR vaccine can cause autism examined only 12 children. The study has since been retracted (meaning that it has been removed from scientific literature because the data and study methods were found to be fraudulent). A subsequent study by the same lead author has also been discredited. Larger studies by other researchers have not identified a causal relationship between vaccines and autism, or vaccine ingredients and autism.