When state laws mandate healthcare workers to get a flu shot, flu vaccination rates increase, according to research from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine published in the Journal of the National Medical Association.
Researchers looked at flu vaccination rates from 2000 to 2011, during which the number of states mandating flu shots for healthcare workers jumped from two to 19. From 2000 to 2005, just Maine and New Hampshire had such laws, and the average rate for flu-vaccinated healthcare workers was 22.5 percent. When more states got on board, the average rate rose to 50.9 percent.
Some states have more rigid flu shot laws than others: Some mandate that healthcare employers pay for the vaccinations, while others require only some healthcare workers to be vaccinated, for instance.
"We're finding that the higher the score — meaning the state has a law and includes components like a mandate or education — the greater the probability that the vaccination rate among healthcare workers will be higher," said Chyongchiou Jeng Lin, PhD, the study's lead author.
When healthcare workers are vaccinated against the flu, it is akin to "building a fence to protect patients, who perhaps can't get immunized or whose immune systems are so compromised that the vaccine isn't as effective," said Richard Zimmerman, MD, professor at Pitt's Department of Family Medicine and Graduate School of Public Health.