House panel hears bill to resume de‑identified school immunization reports to DPHHS and CDC

Representative Melody Cunningham, sponsor of House Bill 364, told the House Health and Human Services Committee on Friday that the bill would restore Montana’s prior practice of submitting de‑identified, aggregate school immunization and exemption data to the Department of Public Health and Human Services for inclusion in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention repository.

The bill sponsor said the change would correct “an unintended consequence” of a 2021 law and would allow Montana to rejoin other states that share aggregate immunization coverage information. “Sharing of this information from the schools to these two groups strictly adheres … to privacy acts as mandated in our Montana constitution and also in the Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act,” Representative Melody Cunningham (R), House District 97, said while opening the hearing.

Why it matters: Nut graf Supporters told the committee that county, tribal and state public health officials, school nurses and clinicians use school‑level coverage and exemption rates to detect pockets of vulnerability, focus outreach, and speed diagnosis and treatment if an outbreak occurs. Opponents said the data risked identifying students in small communities and could be misused.

What the bill would do House Bill 364 would permit schools to forward de‑identified, aggregate counts of student immunization and exemption…