Personal Belief Exemptions from Vaccination and Associated Demographic, Socioeconomic, and Political Factors in California
Claire Hofius Eric Carter Laura Smith
Background
What are PBEs?
Research Questions
(1) Where are the clusters of childhood vaccination refusals in California? (2) What are the social, demographic, and political characteristics of those places?
Conceptual Framework
Place effects
community level norms, "collective good"
Social Factors positively associated with vaccine refusal
-White Ethnicity -Larger Families -Low Population Density
Social Factors ambiguously associated with vaccine refusal
-Educational Attainment -Income
Data Sources and Methods
California Dept. of Health ESRI US Census David Latterman OEHHA
Database of 6000+ kindergarten schools
Kuldorff's spatial scan statistic, SaTScan
Identify High, Low PBE or other census tract
Statistical Analysis
Challenges of Cluster Research
-Small numbers problem -Extreme variation in areas of census tracts -Tracts without schools -Tract boundaries:what contitutes a neighborhood?
Results
Initial Maps
SaTScan Results
Statistic Results
Limitations
Conclusions
Future Study
Questions?
Acknowledgements
Dawn Biehler, Anoushka Millear, Margaret Carrel, Kevin Mathews, Macalester Geography Department
