Healthcare Personnel Influenza Vaccination in California Hospitals, 2021–22
Hospital-based health care personnel (HCP) who receive annual influenza vaccination make an important contribution to prevent transmission of influenza to patients, their families, and the community. California acute care hospitals must offer influenza vaccination at no cost to HCP, require HCP to receive the annual influenza vaccination or declare in writing that he/she declines vaccination, and report vaccination data to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) (Health and Safety Code section 1288.7).
To reach the Healthy People 2020 goal, statewide vaccination among HCP should have achieved at least 90% in the 2021–22 influenza season. During the 2021–22 influenza season, approximately 909,283 HCP worked in California hospitals. Among these health care personnel, 668,121 (73.5%) received the influenza vaccine.
Influenza vaccination among HCP in California hospitals decreased by 7.6% during the 2021–22 influenza season
compared with the 2020–21 influenza season.
Figure 2. Hospital Health Care Personnel Influenza Vaccination Coverage by Year
Overall, of 394 hospitals only 64 (16%) hospitals achieved the 90% Healthy People 2020 goal (Table 2).
CDPH recommends that all HCP receive annual influenza vaccination. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic with the potential for concurrent COVID-19 and influenza outbreaks, it is essential for healthcare facilities to optimize all available effective influenza prevention and outbreak control interventions, including influenza vaccination of HCP. In response to this report, CDPH is providing reminders of the importance of HCP influenza vaccination on weekly healthcare facility calls and webinars, and upon request will provide each local public health agency with a list of hospitals in their jurisdiction that have vaccination rates less than 90% and identify which hospitals should be targeted for local public health intervention.
Data used to produce this report are available on the California Health and Human Services Open Data Portal (select Diseases and Conditions).
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interactive map to see your hospital’s HCP influenza (flu) vaccination rate.