KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor: Parents and the Pandemic

This KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor – Parents and the Pandemic was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). The survey was conducted July 15-August 2, 2021 via telephone and online among a nationally representative sample of 1,259 adults who are the parent or guardian of a child under the age of 18 living in their household. The sample includes 351 parents reached through the July 2021 KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor and 908 who were reached online through a probability-based online panel (SSRS Opinion Panel). The Vaccine Monitor respondents were reached through a random digit dial telephone sample of adults ages 18 and older (including interviews from 101 Hispanic parents and 64 non-Hispanic Black parents), living in the United States. Phone numbers used for the telephone component were randomly generated from cell phone and landline sampling frames, with an overlapping frame design, and disproportionate stratification aimed at reaching Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black respondents as well as those living in areas with high rates of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. The sample also included 43 parents by calling back respondents that had previously competed an interview on a KFF poll (n=11) or SSRS omnibus poll (n=32). The comparison sample of non-parents was also drawn from the July 2021 KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor. See the July 2021 KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor for further details on the telephone component.

For the online component, invitations were sent to panel members who previously identified as the parent of a child ages 5 to 17.  As with the telephone component, Hispanic and Black respondents were oversampled.  The SSRS Opinion Panel is a nationally representative probability-based web panel. SSRS Probability Panel members are recruited randomly in one of two ways: (a) Through invitations mailed to respondents randomly sampled from an Address-Based Sample (ABS). ABS respondents are randomly sampled by MSG through the U.S. Postal Service’s Computerized Delivery Sequence (CDS). (b) from a dual-frame random digit dial (RDD) sample, through the SSRS Omnibus survey platform. Sample for the SSRS Omnibus is obtained through Marketing System Groups (MSG).

The combined telephone and online parent samples were weighted to match the sample’s demographics to the national parent population using data from the Census Bureau’s 2019 U.S. American Community Survey (ACS). Weighting parameters included sex, age, education, marital status, child age, and region, within racial/ethnic groups. The weights take into account differences in the probability of selection for each sample type (phone and web). This includes adjustment for the sample design and geographic stratification of the telephone sample, within household probability of selection, and the design of the panel-recruitment procedure.

The margin of sampling error including the design effect for the full sample of parents is plus or minus 4 percentage points. Numbers of respondents and margins of sampling error for key subgroups are shown in the table below. For results based on other subgroups, the margin of sampling error may be higher. Sample sizes and margins of sampling error for other subgroups are available by request. Sampling error is only one of many potential sources of error and there may be other unmeasured error in this or any other public opinion poll. Kaiser Family Foundation public opinion and survey research is a charter member of the Transparency Initiative of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

This work was supported in part by grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF (an advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation), the Ford Foundation, and the Molina Family Foundation. We value our funders. KFF maintains full editorial control over all of its policy analysis, polling, and journalism activities.