COVID Vaccine Hesitancy in Frontline Nursing Home Staff
COVID has taken a devastated toll in nursing homes.\xa0 Despite representing fewer than 5% of the total US events, at least 40% of COVID\u201019\u2013related deaths occurred in older individuals living in nursing homes.\xa0 The good news is that with the introduction of COVID vaccines in nursing homes, numbers of infections and outbreaks have plummeted. \xa0 However, only about 2/3rds of nursing home patients and only about \xbd of nursing home staff have been vaccinated, largely due to hesitancy about taking the vaccine.
On today's podcast we talk about vaccine hesitancy with Sarah Berry, Kimberly Johnson, and David Gifford and the lessons learned from their \u201ctown hall\u201d intervention they did that was just published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.\xa0\xa0
A couple of take-home messages for me in this study was that vaccine misinformation was rampant, many nursing staff had lingering questions they wanted answered before getting the shot, and that sharing stories and personal experiences is an important way to overcome hesitancy.\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0
In addition to listening to the podcast, we really encourage everyone to take a look at the JAGS article as it has two great tables for anyone willing to do similar town halls.\xa0 The first is a summary of the concerns of healthcare staff.\xa0 The second is sample responses to address some of these concerns.\xa0