Increasing influenza vaccination coverage in healthcare workers: a review on campaign strategies and their effect

Schumacher, Sofie; Salmanton-García, Jon; Cornely, Oliver A.; Mellinghoff, Sibylle C.

PURPOSE: Increasing influenza vaccination coverage in healthcare workers is a challenge. Especially during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, high vaccination coverage should be attained. This review analyzed strategies to increase influenza vaccination coverage in healthcare workers. METHODS: A literature search using PubMed was conducted and 32 publications on influenza vaccination campaigns for healthcare workers were reviewed for key interventions and resulting vaccination coverage. RESULTS: Among key interventions analyzed, mandatory vaccination policies or multifaceted campaigns including a vaccinate-or-wear-a-mask policy as well as mandatory declination reached vaccination coverage in healthcare workers of over 90%. Although campaigns solely based on education and promotion or on-site-vaccination did not regularly exceed an absolute vaccination coverage of 40%, a substantial relative increase in vaccination coverage was reached by implementation of these strategies. CONCLUSION: Mandatory vaccination policies are effective measures to achieve high overall vaccination coverage. In clinics where policies are infeasible, multifaceted campaigns comprising on-site vaccination, vaccination stands and educational and promotional campaigns as well as incentives should be implemented. Lessons learned from influenza campaigns could be implemented in future SARS-CoV-2 vaccination campaigns.