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This episode is sponsored by the Rural Health Research Gateway at the University of North Dakota.

Vaccine requirements have been much in the news lately tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, but disputes over requiring vaccines have been with us for decades.

How to balance respecting individual autonomy with protecting public health is not a new issue. It's played out in particular force when it comes to children.

All states have vaccine requirements for children as they enter school and those requirements are often pretty widely known. Less well known are those requirements related to child care, which can affect children long before they reach school age.

Alexandra Bhatti from Merck joins A Health Podyssey to discuss vaccine requirements for child care in the United States.

Bhatti and coauthors published a paper in the April 2022 issue of Health Affairs assessing child care vaccination requirements in the United States. They found considerable variation across the 50 states and Washington, DC.

While all jurisdictions require children up through age five to meet certain requirements to attend school or child care programs, the states are uneven in their breadth, enforcement, and implementation of these requirements.

If you enjoy this interview, order the April 2022 issue of Health Affairs for research on access to care, hospitals and more.

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