What parents and adolescent boys want in school vaccination programs in the United States

Schools are increasingly a part of vaccine provision, because of laws mandating provision of information by schools about vaccination, school entry requirements, and mass vaccination campaigns. We examined preferences for programmatic aspects of voluntary school mass vaccination programs (i.e., "vaccination days").

We analyzed data from a national sample of United States parents of adolescent males ages 11-19 years (n = 308) and their sons (n = 216), who completed an online survey in November 2011.

Sons believed that adolescents should be able to get vaccinated without parental consent at a younger age than parents did (p < .001) and were more willing to participate in vaccination days without a parent present (p = .04). Parents perceived school vaccination days to be a more convenient way to get their sons recommended vaccines if they were younger parents, had older adolescent sons, supported laws letting schools share vaccination records with health care providers, or had sons who were previously immunized at school (all p < .05). Parents of older sons were less likely to want their sons' vaccination records sent home (odds ratio [OR] = .47; 95% confidence interval [CI], .29-.77) or to their sons' physicians (OR = .61; 95% CI, .37-.98) compared with parents of younger sons, but more likely to prefer their sons' records be entered in an immunization registry (OR = 1.66; 95% CI, 1.05-2.63).

Sons' age had an important role in support for vaccination days and preferences for sharing vaccination information with health care professionals. Parents and sons had similar beliefs about vaccination in schools, but the sons' responses suggested an interest in greater autonomy.