Health care workers, pregnant women show little movement on flu vaccination
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* Natalie McGill

There has been little change in how many U.S. health care workers and pregnant women got flu vaccines since the past flu season, marking a need to make education and vaccination opportunities available, according to recent federal studies.

Among health care professionals, 77.3 percent received flu vaccines during the 2014-15 flu season, a slight increase from 75.2 percent in the 2013-14 season. The rate dropped slightly for pregnant women from 52.2 percent in the 2013-14 season, to 50.3 percent in 2014-15 season. The research comes from two studies published Sept. 18 in *Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report*.

Coverage in the two groups is important to prevent health care workers from spreading the flu to patients and to build immunity in at-risk populations such as pregnant women and children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all health workers and pregnant women receive an annual flu vaccination. The vaccine not only protects the mother but her baby up to six months after birth, according to CDC.

The health worker study surveyed more than 1,900 health professionals and found that people working in hospitals were most likely to be vaccinated, at 90.4 percent. Health workers who work in long-term care facilities were the least likely to be vaccinated, at nearly 64 percent.

Vaccination rates were highest among health care workers who were offered free on-site access to flu vaccines, especially if they were offered on multiple days, the study said. Those workers had a 73.6 percent vaccination rate when their workplace offered free flu vaccines for one day and nearly 84 percent for free flu vaccines offered over multiple days.

Flu vaccine rates were 44 percent for health care workers whose employers did not offer flu vaccines at their workplace or require them to get vaccinated, the study said. Offering flu vaccine clinics at workplaces may be key in getting more health workers vaccinated, study authors wrote.

The second study surveyed more than 1,700 pregnant women, finding that nearly 65 percent said their health care provider offered to give them a flu vaccine. About 68 percent of those women received a flu vaccine.

Nearly 15 percent of women said a health care provider recommended they receive a flu vaccine but did not offer to give them one. Out of those women, only 33.5 percent received vaccines.

Also, 20.3 percent said a health worker did not recommend the flu shot at all. Of those, only 8.5 percent of those women got flu vaccines.

For the women who received flu vaccines, the biggest reason they cited for getting vaccinated was to “protect my baby from flu,” the study said. Most of the women who refused vaccines did so because they did not think the vaccine was strong enough to fight the flu, the study said.

Study authors recommended clinic-based education for pregnant women that highlights the health risks of skipping vaccination and stresses the safety of the vaccine for the future mother and child.

For more information, visit [www.cdc.gov/mmwr](http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr).

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