COLUMBUS, Ohio — As Ohio children return to school, health officials are sounding the alarm about a troubling trend: fewer students are getting vaccinated against preventable diseases and experts say the consequences could be dangerous.

For the 2024–2025 school year, 85.4% of kindergartners met all state vaccine requirements, according to the Ohio Department of Health. That’s a drop of nearly 4.5 percentage points from the 2019–2020 school year, when the compliance rate was 89.9%.

“That means thousands fewer incoming kindergartners are protected against the range of diseases that these vaccines prevent,” said Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff in a press conference last week.

The state’s vaccination rate is now below the national average and falls short of the 90

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