Better to "Ensure" than "Offer"

Seungwan Kim , University of Maryland

The seasonal flu is an easily neglected disease compared to other communicable diseases. However, according to a CDC report, at least 10 thousand people died from flu-associated causes in 2015-2016 in the United States. Nevertheless, the overall flu vaccination rate was far lower than the 70% CDC goal. This low vaccination rate in hospital settings is critical to patient health, as patients in a hospital are more vulnerable to flu-associated complications, which could lead to severe illness and death. Therefore, this paper estimates the impact of the Administrative Requirements for Ensuring Vaccination to healthcare workers on flu-associated, particularly pneumonia and influenza, deaths. Results show that states with provisions ensuring healthcare workers receive influenza vaccinations have a 0.5% ~ 1% lower mortality rate from pneumonia and influenza than other states, while provisions simply offering vaccinations to healthcare workers do not have a statistically significant impact on mortality.

See paper

 Presented in Session 11. Health & Mortality 2