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Do Influenza Epidemics Affect Patterns of Sickness Absence Among British Hospital Staff?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Jonathan Nguyen-Van-Tam ,
Ruth Granfield ,
James Pearson ,
Douglas Fleming  and
Nicola Keating
Jonathan Nguyen-Van-Tam*
Affiliation:
Division of Public Health Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Nottingham Medical School, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Ruth Granfield
Affiliation:
Division of Public Health Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Nottingham Medical School, Nottingham, United Kingdom
James Pearson
Affiliation:
Division of Public Health Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Nottingham Medical School, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Douglas Fleming
Affiliation:
Royal College of General Practitioners Research Unit, Birmingham, United Kingdom
Nicola Keating
Affiliation:
Division of Public Health Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Nottingham Medical School, Nottingham, United Kingdom
*
Division of Public Health Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Nottingham Medical School, Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham, NG7 2UH, UK
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Abstract

Influenza vaccination for healthcare workers is not recommended in Britain, but some hospitals offer vaccine to reduce sickness absence. However, in Nottingham, the influenza epidemics of 1993-94 and 1996-97 made no impact on staff absence. Annual vaccination of healthcare workers against influenza is unlikely to reduce absence most winters, but there may be gains in terms of preventing nosocomial infection.

Type
Concise Communications
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 20 , Issue 10 , October 1999 , pp. 691 - 694
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1999

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