WASHINGTON — Despite a week of political controversy over childhood vaccinations, the American public remains largely undivided on the issue.
While a recent study suggests that coverage of controversy over vaccines can actually drive down support for them, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll finds that most Americans see childhood vaccinations as safe and necessary. And although there are some signs of conservative skepticism, the issue remains far from becoming a partisan football in public opinion.
The idea that vaccination is an issue of freedom hasn’t taken much hold. Seventy percent of Americans say the issue of whether children should be vaccinated is a matter of public health, while just 22 percent describe it as a personal choice. Just 21 percent know anyone who’s decided not to vaccinate their own children. (In another sign of sound priorities, a majority also says the measles pose a bigger threat to Americans than Ebola did last year.)
Most people don’t think the issue of vaccinations should even be up for debate. Fifty-nine percent say the science supporting the safety of childhood vaccinations is indisputable, as President Barack Obama argued in a TV interview earlier this month.
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The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted Feb. 2-4 among U.S. adults using a sample selected from YouGov’s opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.
The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov’s nationally representative opinion polling. Data from all HuffPost/YouGov polls can be found here. More details on the poll’s methodology are available here.
Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some, but not all, potential survey errors. YouGov’s reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample, rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.
