KVIG Informative

A record share of Nevada kindergartners started school this year without at least one required vaccine. Two local researchers say the reason has less to do with what parents believe and more to do with where they’re getting their information.

Nevada recorded the fifth-highest kindergarten vaccine exemption rate in the country during the 2025-26 school year, behind only Idaho, Utah, Oregon and Arizona, according to newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nationally, the kindergarten vaccine exemption rate reached a record 4.2% during the 2025-26 school year, up from 3.6% the year before — the fourth consecutive year the national average has set a new record, according to the CDC. That amounts to roughly 155,000 children nationwide, with the vast majority of exemptions claimed for nonmedical reasons.

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CDC data shows statewide hepatitis B vaccine coverage among Nevada kindergartners is now 92%, while MMR and chickenpox coverage have fallen from a high of 96% in 2020 to around 91% and 90% today, respectively.

Brian Labus, who founded the Nevada immunization coalition NVax alongside UNLV School of Public Health graduate student Sara Conners, said a major factor in the growing distrust of vaccines is the way parents now consume information. Labus said parents in their 20s and 30s are more likely to encounter vaccine information through social media rather than traditional news sources, the way previous generations did.

Conners said the misinformation driving vaccine hesitancy is usually fear-based, and that most parents declining vaccines aren’t acting out of indifference to their children’s safety but out of genuine, if misplaced, concern for it. NVax launched in April 2026 with a mission of protecting Nevadans against preventable disease through community outreach, education and vaccination events.

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Public health experts say community immunity against measles requires more than 95% of a susceptible population to be vaccinated; Nevada’s current MMR coverage sits several points below that threshold. The exemption data arrives as the country experiences its worst year for measles cases since 1991.

Nevada’s kindergartners aren’t getting sicker because fewer parents care about their health — according to Labus and Conners, they’re getting less protected because more parents are making that decision based on where their social media feed happens to point them. The vaccination rate keeps dropping either way.