Vaccination requirements for children attending public schools has been a prominent topic of debate recently, with the Trump Administration taking views that are counter to the vast majority of scientific and medical communities. The question of whether states should mandate vaccinations for children as a prerequisite for enrollment in public schools continues to spark conversations around public safety, collective responsibility, individual rights and the role of government in health policy.

We have been tracking the views Americans hold around this issue and thought it would be interesting to see if opinions had shifted at all since the beginning of the year. While support for mandatory vaccinations remains strong, there are variations among different demographic groups. Overall, there was very little movement on the support side (a drop of 0.77 points); however, there was a bigger uptick on the opposition side of the equation (1.73-point increase). While these are not massive shifts on the “no” side, it will be worth taking a closer look at how this changes over the next year or two. 

Here are the key takeaways from this week’s chart:

• ⬆️⬇️Generational Gaps: Boomers showed the highest support for mandating vaccinations in public schools back in January (just under 76%) while Gen Z Americans had the highest level of opposition (40%). Support grew among every generation apart from Boomers over the past few months, while opposition grew among Gen Z (2.86 percentage points), Gen X (0.37), and Boomers (nearly four points).
• 🔎🔦Ethnicity: In January, Latino and Asian Americans had the lowest levels of support for mandates (56% and 52%, respectively) and, while this is still the case, support grew among both cohorts by a little less than 5% among Latinos, and over 9% among Asian Americans. Among Black/African Americans, support dropped by 3%, and opposition grew by 4%.
• ➗Partisan Divides: Not shockingly, there are partisan differences in support and in movement. Democrats support mandates (about 90% on average), while GOP support dropped by slightly less than 3% and fell below 50% by September. On the opposition side, Republicans moved up nearly 4% and now have only a 10-point gap between the concentration of support and opposition.