With the arrival of spring, flu season comes to an end. Officials say 2013 was an especially bad year, with much of the country reporting high rates of disease.
The Centers for Disease Control recommended anyone over the age of six months be vaccinated, but many took a pass. A new report from Virginia Tech sheds some light on why parents might choose to ignore medical advice when it comes to vaccines.
Professor Bernice Hausman and her colleagues were asked to investigate, and what they found was a bit of a surprise.
The team concluded that different populations in the U.S. have different reasons for opting out of vaccination programs, and if the nation wants to address the problem of pockets where vaccines are unpopular, it will have to work at the local level to find out why each community feels the way it does, and to craft local solutions.