Using data from the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network, researchers looked at vaccine coverage from the 2022-23 influenza season. The findings are based on data from more than 8 million healthcare workers at about 4,000 hospitals and 2 million workers across nearly 14,000 nursing homes. Up-to-date COVID-19 vaccine coverage was defined as having gotten a bivalent booster dose or completion of a primary series within the prior two months.
Eighty-one percent of hospital staff had received their flu shot last season, relative to 47% of nursing home workers. When it came to COVID-19, 17% of hospital workers had gotten the latest vaccines, relative to 23% of nursing home staff.
Influenza vaccine coverage among healthcare personnel has fallen from pre-pandemic years, which the report says may be due to COVID-19-related vaccine fatigue. During the 2018-19 flu season, for instance, the vaccination coverage rate was 90% among hospital workers.
The report authors said low rates of up-to-date COVID vaccination coverage among healthcare workers in both settings, and low flu shot coverage among nursing home staff, are “both important threats to patient health and safety that need to be addressed.”
Many healthcare organizations mandate the flu shot for employees, which may have contributed to higher rates reported to the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network, according to the report.
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