Most U.S. healthcare workers don’t get flu vaccine
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Just 38 percent of healthcare workers in the United States received an influenza vaccine in 2000, despite strong evidence showing that vaccination can reduce the rate of hospital-acquired infections in patients and employee absenteeism, according to a new report.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends influenza vaccination for healthcare workers who have direct patient contact. By contrast, the findings from the present study suggest that it is the workers with direct patient contact, such as health aides and medical assistants (but not physicians, who have the highest vaccination rates) who are least likely to be vaccinated.
In an interview with Reuters Health, study co-author Dr. Steffie J. Woolhandler, said that the key reason for vaccine underutilization by healthcare workers is the same one that plagues the general population: poor access to care.
“We found that healthcare workers who have poor access to care for their own personal health needs are also very unlikely to get flu shots, even though, for some of them, flu shots may be available at work,” Woolhandler, from Harvard Medical School in Boston, said. “Healthcare workers who are unlikely to have health insurance, a personal physician, or receive preventive care for their own health needs are just very unlikely to get a flu shot.”
The findings, which appear in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, are based on analysis of data from the 2000 National Health Interview Survey. The final sample consisted of 1,651 healthcare workers.
Healthcare workers younger than 50 years of age were 33 percent less likely to be vaccinated against influenza than were their peers between 50 and 64 years of age. African Americans had a 43-percent lower rate of vaccination compared with whites.
Health aides were 27-percent less likely to receive the vaccine than were administrative staff. “We’re reverse targeting. We’re getting flu shots to the administrative people and not to the folks with direct, hands-on contact with patients,” Woolhandler noted.
To improve influenza vaccination rates among healthcare workers, the access to care issues that affect their personal health needs must be addressed, Woolhandler emphasized. In addition, she said she would “not be against making flu shots mandatory for healthcare workers,” instead of it being just a recommendation as it is currently.
SOURCE: Journal of General Internal Medicine, February 2006.
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