Santa Barbara County Grand Jury
• 2024-2025
• Agency Response
Roy Lee First District Laura Capps Board of Supervisors Second District, Chair County Administration Building Joan*
⚠️ Aviso de traducción: Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 5 findings
F1
The lack of County-wide childhood vaccination data for homeschooled children means that County Health knowledge of community immunity levels is incomplete. The Board of Supervisors agrees. Unlike children enrolled in school, homeschooled children are not mandated to report vaccine status and therefore vaccination rates in this population of children are unknown. This is consistent across California.
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
The Grand Jury recommends that the County Board of Supervisors require County Health to study and estimate childhood vaccination levels of homeschooled children in the County. <b>This recommendation will not be implemented.</b> There is no feasible method to reliably study and estimate childhood vaccination levels of homeschooled children. In an effort to address the Grand Jury's recommendation, County Health reviewed the estimated number of homeschooled children and assumed they were all unvaccinated in order to represent a "worst case scenario." In such scenario, the overall vaccination rates for children between the ages of 5 to 17 dropped from 97% to 93%. Herd immunity targets range between 90 to 95%, thus even under this scenario, the County is still within the herd immunity target. <sup>1</sup> To obtain these figures, County Health utilized the Department of Finance age population estimate for ages 5 to 17 in Santa Barbara County (75,643) and subtracted the private and public school estimates for this population using the Department of Education population counts (5,493 and 66,864, respectively) resulting in 3,286 homeschooled children. See https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/si/ps/psastatcountsbycnty.asp; https://www.ed-data.org/county/santa-barbara; https://dof.ca.gov/forecasting/demographics/projections. According to the California Department of Public Health, 97% of school aged children in public and private schools are vaccinated. Assuming for this exercise that zero homeschooled children are vaccinated, the vaccination rate for this population fell to 93%. Docusign Envelope ID: 99B6BC86-C253-4DEF-AC5A-DE8BD8500ED5
F2
The lack of County-wide childhood vaccination data for adults means that County Health knowledge of community immunity levels is incomplete. The Board of Supervisors disagrees partially with an explanation. The Board agrees that currently there is no reliable database for countywide childhood vaccination data for adults. However, this does not mean that the knowledge of community immunity levels is incomplete. The California Immunization Registry (CAIR) began mandating data entry of all vaccines since January 2023, therefore as residents age into adulthood, childhood vaccine rates within adults will become available. Currently, County Health relies on data from reportable vaccine preventable diseases and outbreak trends to assess whether the community immunity is at risk.
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
The Grand Jury recommends that the County Board of Supervisors require County Health to study and estimate childhood vaccination levels of adults in the County. This recommendation will not be implemented. There is no reliable method to estimate childhood vaccination levels in adults. The only feasible method would be through a countywide survey where individuals are asked to provide or recollect their childhood immunization records. However, recollection is unreliable and insufficient to infer community immunity and it is unlikely that adults maintain their child immunization records.
F3
The Sheriff's Office has not determined childhood vaccination rates of inmates in County jails, potentially placing the inmates and staff at risk. The Board of Supervisors disagrees partially with an explanation. The Board agrees that the Sheriff's Office has not determined childhood vaccination rates of inmates in County Jails but disagrees that this places the inmates and staff at risk. Inmates are screened for communicable disease signs and symptoms upon intake, and County Disease Control staff provide assistance and recommendations to jail healthcare staff for disease surveillance and reporting. Docusign Envelope ID: 99B6BC86-C253-4DEF-AC5A-DE8BD8500ED5
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
The Grand Jury recommends that the Sheriff's Office collect data during health intake screenings at the County's jails to determine childhood vaccination rates. This recommendation will be implemented. The Board agrees with this recommendation and County Health recommends that the intake process and initial heath assessment at the County Jails include questions about childhood vaccination rates or indicators of being vaccinated, such as attending elementary school in California or serving in the military (both mandates for childhood vaccination). According to the Sheriff Office's response to the Grand Jury dated July 29, 2025, this recommendation will be implemented
F4
There is no program in place at the County's jails to provide childhood vaccinations to unvaccinated inmates, increasing risk for the inmates and staff. The Board of Supervisors disagrees partially with an explanation. The Board agrees that there is no program to provide childhood vaccinations to inmates but disagrees that this places the inmates and staff at risk. As indicated in the response to finding 3, inmates are screened on intake for communicable diseases. While it is impossible to eliminate all risk of disease transmission in jails, especially from asymptomatic persons, the risk is substantially reduced through intake screening, active surveillance, prompt isolation of symptomatic persons, and quarantining for exposed patients as needed.
Related Recommendations (1)
R4
The Grand Jury recommends that the Sheriff's Office implement a program to administer required childhood vaccinations to unvaccinated inmates. This recommendation will be implemented. The Board supports offering catch-up vaccinations to unvaccinated incarcerated persons in accordance with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and based on identified risk factors. County Health is presently working with the contracted jail medical provider to implement a vaccination program in the jails consistent with the above guidelines. The Sheriff Office's July 29, 2025 response to the Grand Jury indicated that the Sheriff will be analyzing implementation of a vaccination program and will provide a written report of its analysis by December 1, 2025. Their analysis will be utilized to further refine implementation.
F5
Docusign Envelope ID: 99B6BC86-C253-4DEF-AC5A-DE8BD8500ED5 There is no procedure in place at the County's jails on when or how to isolate unvaccinated inmates, increasing potential risk of a disease outbreak in the jails. The Board of Supervisors disagrees partially with an explanation. The Board agrees that there is not a specific procedure in place for isolating unvaccinated inmates, but disagrees that this increases a potential risk for disease outbreaks. The Sheriff's Office has established protocols for isolating inmates who exhibit signs and symptoms of infectious disease.
Related Recommendations (1)
R5
The Grand Jury recommends that the Sheriff's Office develop and enforce a procedure on when and how to isolate unvaccinated inmates. This recommendation will not be implemented. Isolating otherwise healthy individuals can negatively impact mental health and can increase the risk for suicide in incarcerated persons. The Sheriff's Office has established protocols for isolating inmates who exhibit signs and symptoms of infectious disease. Isolating incarcerated persons solely because they are unvaccinated would potentially violate these individuals' rights.
* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.