Online-only: Flu vaccine coverage rates fall short among health workers, report finds
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* Teddi Dineley Johnson

Despite recommendations that health workers be immunized annually against the flu, not enough are, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

During the 2010-2011 flu season, about 63.5 percent of health workers received an influenza vaccine, up slightly from 61.9 percent the year before. Published Aug. 19 in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the research points to rates that are well below the Healthy People 2020 target, which calls for 90 percent of health care workers to be vaccinated against the flu each year.

The study found vaccination rates soared when employers made them a requirement. For example, among the 13 percent of health care personnel surveyed who reported being required by their employers to be vaccinated against influenza, vaccine uptake topped 98 percent. Among health workers whose employers did not require vaccination but who were offered the vaccine on-site, greater coverage was associated with a personal reminder from the employer to get vaccinated.

Health workers who comply with influenza vaccination recommendations protect not only themselves, but their patients as well, Carolyn Bridges, MD, associate director for adult immunization at CDC, said at a briefing releasing the report Aug. 18.

“Health care facilities should make vaccines readily available to all health care personnel as a part of a comprehensive infection control program,” Bridges said. “Influenza vaccination for health care personnel is important for the protection of both the health care worker against influenza and to reduce the likelihood that the patient may be exposed to an influenza-infected health care worker.”

Analyzing data collected online from about 1,900 health workers, researchers found that 71 percent of hospital personnel received flu vaccines during the 2010–2011 flu season, as compared to 61.5 percent of health workers in ambulatory and outpatient centers. According to the report, 84 percent of physicians and dentists lined up for a vaccine, as compared to about 83 percent of nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

Older health workers reported higher coverage rates than their younger counterparts, with more than 74 percent of health care workers ages 60 and older rolling up their sleeves during the 2010–2011 flu season as compared to 56 percent of 18 to 29-year-old health workers and 58 percent of health workers ages 30 to 44.

Besides availing themselves of seasonal flu vaccine, health workers should step up their efforts to ensure that their pregnant patients are offered influenza vaccinations, according to CDC. Additional research published Aug. 19 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report finds health care providers at times fall short in offering flu vaccines to their pregnant patients. According to the research, pregnant women whose health care providers offer them a flu vaccine are five times more likely to get vaccinated than those who do not receive such an offer.

Based on data collected online from more than 1,400 women, 49 percent reported receiving the 2010–2011 flu vaccine before, during or after pregnancy. Before 2009, flu vaccination coverage among pregnant women had been consistently low, with only about 15 percent of pregnant moms receiving a seasonal flu vaccine, according to the report. However, vaccine coverage levels increased substantially — to nearly 50 percent — in response to the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic.

“These results indicate that the higher vaccination level achieved (in 2009-2010) was sustained and emphasize the critical role of health care providers in promoting influenza vaccination,” according to the report. “Continued efforts are needed to encourage health care providers to strongly recommend and offer influenza vaccination to pregnant patients to protect both the mothers and their infants.”

Women are at increased risk for complications and death from influenza during pregnancy. Vaccinating pregnant women against seasonal flu can protect both women and their infants, especially infants younger than 6 months who are not old enough to receive influenza vaccinations. Since 2004, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have recommended inactivated influenza vaccine for all women who are pregnant during influenza season, regardless of trimester.

The studies are available online at [www.cdc.gov/mmwr](http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr).

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association