Patients and parents expect health care providers to have information about new vaccines. So, when a new H1N1 vaccine became available in October 2009, the question was: Would health care providers recommend it?
Results from the latest C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health indicate health care providers play a critical role in influencing parents and patients to vaccinate their children and themselves against H1N1 flu.
The poll found that 29 percent of children and 16 percent of adults have received H1N1 vaccine, as of January 2010. Vaccination levels were more than two to three times as high when parents thought their children's providers strongly recommended the vaccine (66 percent) and when adults perceived strong recommendations from their own providers (57 percent).
"For H1N1 vaccination among kids and adults, it looks like the advice of health care providers is tremendously important," says Matthew Davis, M.D., director of the poll and associate professor of pediatrics and internal medicine in the Child Health Evaluation and Research Unit at the U-M Medical School. "Our study indicates that the impact of provider recommendations on H1N1 vaccination goes in both directions," says Davis.
For patients and parents whose health care providers strongly favored H1N1 vaccination, immunization rates were much higher than average. But if providers were less positive about the vaccine or even neutral—neither for nor against it—then H1N1 vaccination was much less likely, Davis says.
Among parents who had communicated with providers about H1N1 vaccine, only 38 percent reported that providers strongly recommended H1N1 vaccine for their children; 35 percent of parents perceived that the providers were neutral.
Among adults who had spoken with providers about H1N1 vaccine, 22 percent reported that providers strongly recommended the vaccine, while 55 percent perceived that their providers were neutral.
"Information on safety and effectiveness of H1N1 vaccine was not available until shortly before the vaccine became available in October," says Davis, who is a primary care pediatrician and internist and also associate professor of public policy at the U-M Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. "But patients were asking me what I thought about this vaccine as early as July. Many health care providers may have had less information than usual about this vaccine, just because of the timing of the pandemic and vaccine production. As a result, many providers may not have felt comfortable making strong recommendations in favor of the H1N1 vaccine, even if they typically recommend seasonal flu vaccine and other approved immunizations."