BACKGROUND Assessing the relative success of serial strategies for increasing healthcare personnel (HCP) influenza vaccination rates is important to guide hospital policies to increase vaccine uptake. OBJECTIVE To evaluate serial campaigns that include a mandatory HCP vaccination policy and to describe HCP attitudes toward vaccination and reasons for declination. DESIGN Retrospective cohort...

Maternal influenza vaccination prevents influenza illness in both mothers and newborns. Results from some recent studies have suggested that influenza vaccination might also prevent adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as preterm birth. However, it is challenging to conduct epidemiologic studies to evaluate the benefits to the fetus of maternal influenza vaccination because the causal benefit of va...

BACKGROUND The aims of this study were: a) to evaluate attitudes and practices of health care workers (HCWs) towards influenza vaccination and their opinion regarding a vaccination promotion toolkit; b) to estimate hospital HCWs' influenza vaccination coverage rates (VC). METHODS The Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital (OPBG) is an academic hospital in Italy. Since 2009, free influenza vaccinati...

BACKGROUND Patients with asthma are particularly susceptible to serious complications from influenza. The Chief Medical Officer recommends annual influenza vaccination for adult patients with asthma. The uptake of influenza vaccination by patients with asthma is only 40% and, unlike other high-risk groups, has failed to increase in recent years. AIM To investigate the contribution of sociodem...

BACKGROUND Antenatal influenza vaccination is an important public health intervention for preventing serious illness in mothers and newborns, yet uptake remains low. AIM To evaluate trends in seasonal influenza vaccine coverage and identify determinants for vaccination among pregnant women in Western Australia. METHODS We conducted an annual telephone survey in a random sample of post-partu...

BACKGROUND With the current attention to the pandemic threat of avian influenza viruses, it is recognized that there is little information on influenza in Africa. In addition, the effects of influenza vaccination in African countries could be very different from the effects in regions with less exposure to microorganisms and parasites. METHODS To monitor the presence of influenza viruses and ...

BACKGROUND The 2009 pandemic of influenza A (H1N1) infection has alerted many governments to make preparedness plan to control the spread of influenza A (H1N1) infection. Vaccination for influenza is one of the most important primary preventative measures to reduce the disease burden. Our study aims to assess the willingness of nurses who work for the community nursing service (CNS) in Hong Kon...

OBJECTIVE Prevention of influenza among infants and young children is a public health priority because of their high risk for influenza-related complications. Depending on a child's age and previous influenza vaccination history, they are recommended to receive either 1 dose or 2 doses of influenza vaccine to be considered fully vaccinated against influenza for the season. We compared estimates...

BACKGROUND Vaccinating healthcare personnel (HCP) against influenza is important to prevent transmission and morbidity among patients and staff. METHODS We conducted an online survey assessing knowledge, perceptions and attitudes concerning influenza vaccination among HCP. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to identify independent predictors of vaccination. RESULTS The survey wa...

The primary objective of this study was to assess determinants of vaccine uptake in adults living in Germany exemplified by one standard vaccination (tetanus) and one vaccination targeting specific risk-groups (seasonal influenza). Data from 21,262 telephone household-interviews representative of the adult population in Germany were collected in 2009 and analysed. A total 73.1% of the adult pop...