HCWs’ religious, personal convictions behind vaccine avoidance

Editor's Note

This study from Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), Nashville, Tennessee, demonstrates how detailed healthcare workers’ (HCWs’) personal or religious convictions are behind their vaccine avoidance. VUMC requires that all faculty and staff receive the influenza vaccine annually or receive an approved vaccine exemption.

All personal and religious exemption requests from 2015 to 2018 were analyzed. A total of 1.1% to 2.1% of VUMC HCWs requested religious or personal exemptions from vaccination.

There was a significant increase over the 3 years in exemption approvals—from 296 of 452 (65.5%) to 196 of 248 (80.2%) to 283 of 323 (87.6%).

Of the five most common reasons against vaccination, four were explicitly religious. Nonclinical staff submitted the most exemption requests, submitting nearly a third of all requests each year.

The results show how detailed personal or religious convictions behind vaccine avoidance can be and how vaccine avoidance stems from much more than simple misinformation on vaccination, the authors say.