School exemptions in the United States

This dataset contains: 1) a master file of cleaned and joined data. This dataset contains the year, state, county FIPS code, and pertinent age group for each record. Each county-year combination that is available has entries for total enrolled, total medical exemptions, total non-medical exemption, religious exemptions, philosophical exemptions, pertussis exemptions, measles exemptions, varicella exemptions, and flu exemptions. 

2) the raw and uncleaned files that were used to produce the master file. There is a file for each state-year combination available. The columns included are:

Year: year that data is reported for

State: name of state

County: name of county

School_district: name of school district

City: name of city

Number_reporting: number of establishments within the given reporting area (e.g., number of schools contributing data within a given county or district)

School: name of school, where data is at the school level

Public/private: whether data is reported by public schools only, private schools only, or both

Age: what age groups the data is reported for (CC: childcare/preschool, KG: kindergarten, FG: first grade, MS: middle school/6th/7th grade, K12: kindergarten-high school/mixed grades)

Total_enrolled: total number of students for the given reporting area (e.g., school, district, or county)

Total_completed: total number of students that are up-to-date/compliant for all vaccines required by a particular reporting area (e.g., county or state)

Total_exempt: total number of students exempt for 1+ vaccines for under any type of exemption within the given reporting area

ME_total: all medical exemptions for the given reporting area (e.g., both permanent and temporary)

PME_total: all permanent medical exemptions for the given reporting area

TME_total: all temporary medical exemptions for the given reporting area

PBE_total: total number of students with any type of personal belief exemption for 1+ vaccine within the given reporting area (e.g., no distinction between philosophical or religious belief exemptions)

PBE_total-philosophy: total number of students with a philosophical exemption for 1+ vaccine within the given reporting area

PBE_total-religion: total number of students with a religious belief exemption for 1+ vaccine within the given reporting area

**PBE_total does not necessarily equal (PBE_total-philosophy + PBE_total-religion). Some states report additional exemptions (e.g., McKinney-Vento exemption for children experiencing homelessness) and reasons for non-compliance (conditional school entrance), while others do not. For states that do not report these other exceptions, it is unclear what the true total number of exemptions is and so the PBE_total column is left empty.

TDaP: completion of all recommended TDaP doses

TDaP_exempt: exemptions for TDaP vaccine

Var: completion of all recommended varicalla doses

Var_exempt: exemptions for varicella vaccine

HepB: completion of all recommended HepB doses

HepB_exempt: exemptions for HepB vaccine

HepA: completion of all recommended HepA doses

HepA_exempt: exemptions for HepA vaccine

MMR: completion of all recommended MMR doses

Mumps_exempt: exemptions for mumps vaccine

Rubella_exempt: exemptions for rubella vaccine

Measles2: completion of all recommended measles vaccine doses

Measles2_exempt: exemptions for measles vaccine

Polio(IPV): completion of all recommended IPV doses

Polio(IPV)_exempt: exemptions for polio vaccine

DTaP: completion of all recommended DTaP doses

DTaP_exempt: exemptions for DTaP vaccine

HIB1: completion of all recommended HIB1 doses

HIB1_exempt: exemptions for HIB1 vaccine

MCV4: completion of all recommended MCV4 doses

MCV4_exempt: exemptions for MCV4 vaccine

PCV13: completion of all recommended PCV13 doses

PCV13_exempt: exemptions for PCV13 vaccine

Influenza: completion of all recommended influenza vaccine doses

Influenza_exempt: exemptions for influenza vaccine

No_record: the number of students for which the institution was not able to acquire/report their immunization record

States report different data in different formats. 

The code used to produce the figures included in the manuscript as well as the full cleaned and raw datasets are available on Github at https://github.com/bansallab/exemptions-landscape. The code runs in Python 3.6.

Funding provided by: National Institutes of Health
Crossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000002
Award Number: R01GM123007