Health workers robustly respond to facemask promotion, go predictably separate ways on vaccination
If two regional studies published May 3 are reflective of all U.S. healthcare workers’ attitudes toward the present pandemic, facemask wearing is spotty and vaccination rates are more variable by demographics and attitudes than access.
Both studies were spurred by COVID and are running in in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
In the facemask study, Rupak Datta, MD, PhD, MPH and colleagues at Yale and the VA visually tracked protocol compliance at a 450-bed hospital in Connecticut.
Among 1,561 observations in a baseline period, the team recorded a median weekly compliance rate of 82%.
In a subsequent experimental period, they introduced a spate of interventions and found compliance jumped to 93%.
“Facemask compliance remained suboptimal among healthcare personnel despite a facility-wide mandate for universal masking,” the authors comment. “A multimodal intervention consisting of audit and passive feedback, active discussion and increased communication from leadership was effective in increasing facemask compliance among healthcare personnel.”
Meanwhile the vaccination project was conducted at 394-bed Virginia Hospital Center, which has been offering COVID vaccines to all employees since January.
Classifying staff as vaccinated if they’d received at least one dose, Mary Fossen, RN, and colleagues found the rate was 71% as of March 10.
“In a population with equal access to the COVID-19 vaccine, there were significant differences in vaccination rates among different demographic groups,” Fossen et al. report. “Employees under 50 years of age, nonclinical employees and black/African American employees were less likely to be vaccinated. This suggests that attitudes toward vaccination, and not simply access to the vaccine, are factors in vaccination rates.”
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.