Health care provider recommendation key to COVID-19 vaccine uptake
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Adults who said a health care provider recommended that they receive a COVID-19 vaccine were more likely to get one, data published in MMWR show.
Kimberly H. Nguyen, DrPH, a member of CDC’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force, and colleagues analyzed data from 340,543 U.S. adults who completed a phone survey during one of four different time periods between April 22 and Sept. 25. About 51% of the survey respondents were women, most (24.5%) were aged 50 to 64 years and 62.1% were white.
The researchers reported that proportion of adults who received a provider recommendation for COVID-19 vaccination increased from 34.6% to 40.5% during the survey period. Respondents who said a health care provider recommended COVID-19 vaccination were more likely to have received at least one dose of the vaccine than those who did not receive a recommendation (77.6% vs. 61.9%, adjusted prevalence ratio [aPR] = 1.12). A COVID-19 vaccination recommendation was also associated with a respondent being concerned about COVID-19 (aPR = 1.31), thinking COVID-19 vaccines were “important to protect oneself” (aPR = 1.15), thinking COVID-19 vaccination “was very or completely safe” (aPR = 1.17) and that “many or all of their family and friends had received COVID-19 vaccination” (aPR = 1.19).
The researchers noted that the survey response rate was low, and it did not measure the number of health care provider visits. The study’s cross-sectional design was also a limitation, according to Nguyen and colleagues.
However, they emphasized that “provider recommendation will continue to serve an important role in motivating individual patient vaccination acceptance and completion.”
“Health care systems and medical practices can benefit from procedures that build patient and provider confidence in COVID-19 vaccination and strengthen the capacity of health care providers to have conversations about vaccines, address misinformation and provide tailored information to patients,” the researchers wrote.