State-Level COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates and Exemptions

Over 15 distinct legal features, including vaccination_medical_exemption and negative_test_option, document U.S. state and territorial COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The dataset was compiled and coded by the CDC's COVID-19 Mitigation Policy Analysis Unit from publicly available laws issued from July 26, 2021 onward. It catalogs mandates regardless of subsequent modification or supersession.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal patterns of policy enactment by joining state, effective_date, and date_signed fields.
• Compare policy strictness across states using columns like vaccination_enforcement, negative_test_option, and requires_booster.
• Identify covered populations for targeted outreach by filtering on vaccination_mandate_group and vaccination_person_definition.
• Assess exemption availability by analyzing the vaccination_religious_exemption and vaccination_medical_exemption columns.

Strengths

• Covers all 50 U.S. states and territories.
• Includes 16 specific legal and administrative features per mandate record.
• Data collection involved multiple coders with a documented quality assurance process.

Limitations

• The exact number of mandate records (rows) is unspecified.
• Data is limited to laws found on publicly accessible websites; unpublished orders are excluded.
• Effective and expiration dates are coded strictly from the law text, which may not reflect real-world implementation delays.

Provenance

Source

CDC's COVID-19 Mitigation Policy Analysis Unit and Center for State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial Support, Public Health Law Program.

Collection Method

Laws collected from publicly available government websites, cataloged and coded using HHS Protect.

Time Range

From July 26, 2021 to the date of last update.

Freshness

Last updated on 2022-09-25; described as updated as new laws are collected.

Geography

U.S. states and territories.