Childhood National Immunization Coverage Survey, 2021

Routine childhood vaccination is recommended to help prevent and control a variety of diseases in children, including diphtheria, pertussis, measles, tetanus and polio. Vaccines administered to children not only help protect those who are vaccinated, but also those who are unable to be vaccinated. In Canada, routine vaccines recommended by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization are provided to children free of charge as part of provincial and territorial publicly funded programs.

The results published today are from the Childhood National Immunization Coverage Survey (CNICS) collected in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, Canadians faced many changes to their daily lives. While essential immunizations for children under 2 years of age remained prioritized, in-school vaccination programs for adolescents experienced delays and interruptions that differed across jurisdictions. A comparison with the previous CNICS cycle in 2019, conducted just prior to the pandemic, will help to start quantifying some of the early impacts this historical event may have had on vaccinations and on the knowledge and beliefs of parents and guardians who make decisions about child vaccination. Due to an alternating approach in sampling methodology across cycles, the CNICS 2019 results are the latest available comparator for national level estimates, while the CNICS 2017 results are the latest available comparators for provincial- and territorial-level estimates.

Although CNICS 2021 results show the early impacts of the pandemic seem to have had little influence on national immunization rates in 2021, it is important to note that many children in the target population would have received some or all of their recommended vaccines prior to the onset of the pandemic. Generally, national immunization rates in Canada remained stable across all childhood age groups in 2021 compared with 2019. However, an increased immunization rate against human papillomavirus (HPV) among boys aged 14 years was identified (81% in 2021 compared with 73% in 2019). Most parents and guardians reported either that the pandemic had no influence (80%) or that they were more inclined (18%) to get their child vaccinated. Additional insights from the CNICS are available from the Public Health Agency of Canada.