LINCOLN- Vaccination rates for Nebraska’s school children continue to decline, with rates for two vaccines falling below the 95% national target rate for “healthy children.” An annual state report issued last week indicated that immunization rates for MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella combined) and chickenpox were 94.5% and 93.5%, respectively.

These numbers are both below the 95% target goal set by the “Healthy People 2030” initiative of the federal Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion to prevent the spread of preventable diseases. That mirrors a national trend, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which said last month that 14 states reported overall vaccination rates below 90% for the 2023-2024 school year, compared to only three states in the 2019-2020 school year, before the pandemic.

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