Seven out of 10 U.S. hospital workers were vaccinated against COVID-19 as of Sept. 15, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study issued Wednesday.
Staff working in children's hospitals, in metropolitan counties and in counties with higher vaccination rates were more likely to be vaccinated than their peers, agency officials wrote in an article published in the American Journal of Infection Control.
The CDC based its findings on voluntary reports from hospitals to the Health and Human Services Department. More than 2,000 facilities, or 41%, submitted information on employee vaccination rates in their reports.
Seventy-seven percent of children's hospital employees were vaccinated, the highest rate among the segments of the hospital industry included in the data. For workers at other types of facilities, the rates were 70.1% at short-term acute care hospitals, 68.8% at long-term acute care hospitals and 64% at critical access hospitals.
Geography also was a factor. At metropolitan hospitals, the average vaccination rate was 71%, compared to 65.1% at rural hospitals and 63.3% at non-metropolitan urban hospitals. These findings correlate with community vaccine take-up in different regions.
