Many health care personnel not up to date on COVID-19, flu vaccines

Key takeaways:

• Influenza vaccination coverage was 81% and 47% among health care personnel at acute-care hospitals and nursing homes.
• Up-to-date COVID-19 vaccination coverage was much lower at 17% and 23%.

Many health care personnel working in acute-care hospitals and nursing homes are not up to date on recommended COVID-19 or influenza vaccinations, new study findings suggest.

“Vaccination of health care personnel (HCP) is a critical strategy to minimize transmission of infection in health care settings,” Jeneita Bell, MD, a medical officer in CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, and colleagues wrote in MMWR. “HCP are at high risk for work-related exposure to viruses such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2 but are less likely to transmit these infections when they are vaccinated.”

Bell and colleagues assessed influenza and up-to-date COVID-19 vaccination coverage among 8.4 million HCP working in more than 4,000 acute-care hospitals and two million HCP working in more than 13,700 nursing homes during the 2022-2023 influenza season. These facilities report data to NHSN according to surveillance protocols for influenza and COVID-19 vaccination.

For HCP to be considered “up to date” on COVID-19 vaccination for the study, they should have received either a COVID-19 bivalent booster dose or a primary COVID-19 vaccine series within the previous 2 months, according to the Immunization Practices and the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) definition during the first 6 months of 2023.

Influenza vaccination coverage among workers at acute-care hospitals was 81% overall, Bell and colleagues found, with the lowest coverage reported among nonemployee licensed practitioners (67.2%) and highest among employees (83.1%) and nonemployee students and volunteers (85.2%).

Geographically, the study showed that influenza vaccination coverage among HCPs in acute-care hospitals was highest in the Midwest (84.7%) and lowest in the Pacific region (74.4%).

Among HCP working in nursing homes, influenza vaccination coverage was 47.1% overall, with the lowest coverage reported among employees (46.1%) and highest among nonemployee licensed practitioners (55.3%) and nonemployee students and volunteers (57.7%). Coverage in nursing homes was highest in the Pacific region (61.1%) and lowest in the South (39.7%).

Among HCP working in acute-care hospitals, up-to-date COVID-19 vaccination coverage was 17.2% overall. It was highest in the Pacific region (28.9%) and lowest in the Mountain region (9.1%), with no substantial differences by staff type or urbanicity.

Among HCP in nursing homes, up-to-date COVID-19 vaccination coverage was 22.8% overall, with coverage being highest among nonemployee licensed practitioners (28.2%) and lowest among employees (22.4%). Coverage was highest among HCP working in the Pacific region (40.7%) and lowest among those working in the South (17.5%). The study also showed that up-to-date COVID-19 vaccination was “substantially higher” among HCP working at nursing homes located in urban areas (24.2%) vs. those in rural areas (17.5%).

“There is a need to promote evidence-based strategies to improve vaccination coverage among HCP,” the authors wrote. “Tailored strategies might be useful to reach all HCP with recommended vaccines to protect them and their patients from vaccine-preventable respiratory diseases.”

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