Rhode Island has the highest vaccination rate across the country, while Mississippi was found to have the lowest, a new study has shown.
The study, conducted by WalletHub, the personal finance website, compared data from 50 states and Washington D.C. The data, collected on August 12 this year, ranges from the share of vaccinated children, teenagers and adults to the share of those without health insurance.
Rhode Island was followed by Massachusetts, Maine, Washington state and Maryland in the top five ranking of "states that vaccinate the most."
At the other end of the scale, Mississippi was joined by Alaska, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Texas as the five states with the lowest vaccination rates.
The study comes as millions of Americans without health insurance will have to pay $200 for COVID-19 vaccines following the recent elimination of the federal Bridge Access program.
The program, which provided free COVID-19 vaccines to all adults without healthcare and those whose healthcare did not fully cover the vaccines, recently ran out of funding and was canceled by Congress.
According to WalletHub, the data used in their study to form the ranking was taken from government agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, as well as the IBTimes news outlet and the nonprofits Kaiser Family Foundation and ProCon.org.
The data was compared across three key dimensions, which included children and teenager immunization rates; adult and elderly vaccination rates; as well as immunization uptake disparities and influencing factors.
These three dimensions were then evaluated using 16 relevant metrics and "each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions," WalletHub explains.
The rankings varied across different ages groups as well as types of vaccination.
For example, Washington, D.C. has the highest flu vaccination rate in children aged 6 months to 17 years old, with Mississippi having the lowest.
Massachusetts has the highest flu vaccination coverage rate among adults, while Idaho ranked lowest.
Vermont was found to have the highest tetanus vaccination rate among adults, while South Dakota had the highest share of adults aged 60 and older who had the Zoster vaccine, used to protect against shingles. Mississippi ranked lowest in both vaccine categories.
The study also found that Texas, followed by Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida and Mississippi were the five states with the highest share of "civilian non-institutionalized population" without health insurance coverage. The five areas with the lowest share included Massachusetts, followed by Washington D.C., Hawaii, Vermont and Rhode Island.
The full overall ranking of the 50 states and Washington D.C., as well as rankings across different categories can be seen at the WalletHub website.
While the aforementioned study does not mention data relating to COVID-19 vaccines, vaccinations sparked heated controversy during the height of the pandemic, which began in 2020.
A November 2021 study in published in Scientific Reports looking at COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among 6,037 American adults in the country's four largest metropolitan areas (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas) found that more than 20 percent were "unwilling to vaccinate, expressing concerns about vaccine efficacy and safety and questioning the disease's severity."
The CDC said that, as of May 11 this year, 22.5 percent of adults were reported as having received an updated 2023-24 COVID-19 vaccine since September 14, 2023, while 10.3 percent reported that they "definitely plan to get vaccinated." Vaccination coverage increased by age and was highest (41.5 percent) among those aged 75 years and older, the CDC said.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), vaccines save millions of lives every year, reducing the "risks of getting a disease by working with your body's natural defenses to build protection."
The WHO notes: "We now have vaccines to prevent more than 20 life-threatening diseases, helping people of all ages live longer, healthier lives. Immunization currently prevents 3.5 million to 5 million deaths every year from diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, influenza and measles."