Childhood vaccination rates sit below the national average in Canberra's advantaged inner suburbs, while in the less-advantaged southern extremities of the city 97.9 per cent of five-year-olds were fully immunised.
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Roughly 90 per cent of children aged five have had all their shots in the inner north and inner south, in suburbs including O'Connor, Yarralumla, Deakin, Red Hill and Narrabundah, data compiled by Torrens University's Public Health Information Development Unit shows.
Tuggeranong's Rachael and Brendan Hogan never had any doubt their three children would be fully vaccinated.
Noah, 7, Ailyn, 5, and Evie, 3, have all been kept up to date with their shots.
"It was absolutely something we had to do. As parents we wanted to do everything we possibly could to keep our children safe and healthy, but also to keep our community safe and healthy," Mrs Hogan said.
Mr Hogan said clear evidence around vaccine safety meant it was an easy decision to make.
"Vaccines have been around for a while and there's proof they're effective, safe and no side-effects. Why wouldn't you want the best for your children?" he said.
Mrs Hogan said she was shocked to find it was a controversial topic among other parents.
"It was challenging almost that people in our community have very, very different views. But we wouldn't want our children to suffer," she said.
Just 87.6 per cent of five-year-olds were fully vaccinated in Yarralumla and Deakin, while 97 per cent of children were fully immunised across Kaleen, Giralang, Bruce, McKellar and Evatt.
Nationally, 95 per cent of five-year-old children were fully vaccinated.
Dr Katie Attwell, a mandatory vaccination policy expert at the University of Western Australia, said policies designed to encourage childhood vaccinations had less effect on high-income earners.
Parents could lose childcare subsidies and Centrelink payments if their children had not completed the full vaccination schedule.
"If you're a high-income earner who isn't using childcare, or in fact if you're a super high-income earner who is not eligible for the childcare subsidies that even reasonably high-income earners get, you will not be affected by those levers," Dr Attwell said.
Dr Attwell said a model similar to the private health insurance system could encourage greater vaccine take-up among high-income earners, who would need to pay more tax if they chose not to vaccinate their children.
"It seems like there is an equity issue that there isn't a policy in place that affects the wealthy. I don't think anyone would be too unhappy with a policy like that for the wealthy. I mean obviously wealthy vaccine refusers would be," she said.
"But the Australian population would be like, 'Yeah, of course, we have similar policies for everyone else; why shouldn't we have something that affects this group'? What I'm imagining would only affect that group."
Dr Attwell said the variation in the vaccination rate across the ACT was noteworthy, and schools in different areas could have different vaccination coverage rates.
"That could mean for parents sending their kids to school in the battler suburbs, they can be pretty confident their kids are not going to get a measles outbreak at their school," she said.
"In the higher-income areas ... if those low rates of coverage continue just beyond the age of five and the parents don't ever get caught up, then we'd be looking, potentially, at schools where there would be a much elevated risk of an outbreak."
ACT Health said in a statement it actively worked to increase vaccination coverage rates for five-year-olds in areas of the ACT which did not meet the target of 95 per cent.
"The Health Protection Service actively investigates all children who are overdue in these areas," the statement said.
"There could be a variety of reasons for children missing a vaccine, so the approach to catch-up is tailored to each individual child."
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Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
