Poll says more Canadian parents are against childhood vaccinations, worrying others
A new Angus Reid poll suggests the number of parents opposed to vaccinating their children has grown over the last five yearsin Canada.
The poll published Wednesday says one in six parents say they are really against getting their children vaccinated.
That's four times higher than the number of parents who held that view in 2019.
At the same time, seven in 10 Canadians polled are worried about rising anti-vaccine sentiment, saying it will lead to unnecessary illnesses.
The poll also found that fewer people support mandatory childhood vaccinations in schools.
The study comes amid a global increase in cases of measles — a vaccine-preventable disease.
The poll results come from an online survey of 1,626 Canadian adults who are members of the Angus Reid Forum, conducted between Feb. 16 - 19.
Online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population. Angus Reid says for comparison purposes, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 28, 2024.
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The Canadian Press
