Rasmussen Reports | Aug. 20, 2010

Vaccinations are common requirements for children all over the country in order to attend public school and college. However, half of American adults (52%) say they are concerned about the safety of vaccinations for children, including 27% who are Very Concerned.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 44% are not concerned about the safety of vaccines for children. But this includes just 13% whoa re Not At All Concerned.

Nearly one-out-of-three adults with children under 18 (32%) is Very Concerned about vaccine safety.

Still, 92% of those with children under 18 say their child has received all the vaccinations he or she is supposed to have.

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The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on August 16-17, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

While they are concerned about the safety of the vaccines themselves, adults are more worried about the consequences of not vaccinating children. Seventy-six percent (76%) say they are concerned that unvaccinated children will cause health problems for other children.

There is little difference of opinion on this question between those with school-age children and those without.

At the start of the swine flu epidemic in late 2009, 65% of Americans said they were at least somewhat likely to get the swine flu vaccine.

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