Government Actions Threaten Student Health by Restricting Use of Vaccines to Prevent Disease

The American College Health Association strongly endorses the use of vaccines to protect the health of our nation’s college students and our campus communities. We are deeply troubled by recent state and federal efforts to restrict colleges from employing these common-sense preventive measures which have for decades proven their efficacy. Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as mumps, meningitis, influenza, COVID-19, varicella, and pertussis have been mitigated by strategies that include vaccines.

Specifically, ACHA rejects the tone and intended effect of the recent executive order banning COVID-19 vaccine requirements at colleges and universities. This language ignores scientific data, undermines public health efforts, and jeopardizes the safety and well-being of our campus communities.

For the same reasons, ACHA is also alarmed by state actions to hamper safe and healthy campuses by restricting and/or proposing the outright elimination of vaccination requirements, risking academic success and the lives of students, facility and staff, families, and community members that surround college campuses.

These efforts impinge upon the reasoned courses of action of the health and safety experts at our educational institutions to make decisions based on the best interests of their campus communities. These decisions must be informed by medical science and not political ideology, presumptions, misinformation, and fear.

We call on policymakers to reverse actions already taken and to prioritize the health and safety of our students and our campus communities by supporting evidence-based public health measures, including COVID-19 and other vaccine requirements when deemed necessary by local and federal public health officials and the campuses with whom they work, to maintain safe and accessible higher education settings for all.

See ACHA’s Immunization Recommendations for College Students and other ACHA resources on immunizations.

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