---
title: Healthcare Professionals Updates
tags: under-construction, communication, trust
notes: testing if this works with Gaelle for the add team member issue
---
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# The importance of health care professionals

Healthcare professionals' acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines is important mainly for two reasons:

* because vaccines protect them, their families, friends, patients and community, and
* because their recommendation is key to encouraging others to vaccinate, including other health professionals, friends, family, patients, and the general public.

## The challenge
Healthcare professionals tend to have lower vaccination intentions than the general public (e.g., with regard to influenza vaccines). The same is true for vaccination agianst COVID-19, as can be seen on this graph from a German [study](https://projekte.uni-erfurt.de/cosmo2020/web/topic/impfung/10-impfungen/) where people working in the health sector (red) have lower intentions to get vaccinated as compared to the public (blue). Only half of them [stated](https://projekte.uni-erfurt.de/cosmo2020/web/topic/impfung/20-fokuserhebung/#impfempfehlung-durch-%C3%A4rzte) that they would recommend the vaccination if someone asked them.

The majority of the public wants to receive information from their doctor, making doctors an infuential source. It is therefore important to address concerns about vaccinations among healthcare professionals.


Further information about vaccine hesitancy in healthcare workers can be found in a [report by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)](https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/media/en/publications/Publications/vaccine-hesitancy-among-healthcare-workers.pdf).

## Personal protection and beyond
If you are a healthcare professional, especially if you care for COVID-19 patients, your protection is extremely important not only for yourself but also for your patients, because you can keep caring for them. If many healthcare professionals contracted COVID-19 at the same time, the pressure on health care facilities would likely become overwhelming. For that reason, healthcare professionals are being prioritized for the vaccines in many countries.

While it is not yet known to what extent COVID-19 vaccines reduce transmission of the virus, by protecting yourself you are likely to protect your family, your friends, your patients and the community at large, through what is known as **“herd (or community) immunity”**.

This happens when the vaccine not only prevents the disease or prevents a more severe form of the disease from developing, but also prevents the trasmission of the virus from the vaccinated person to others. If enough people in a community are vaccinated, then the virus will be unable to spread. This is especially important for protecting those who can not be vaccinated. (For more on this issue see [our page about Freeriding](https://hackmd.io/@scibehC19vax/freeriding)).

The evidence about the extent to which COVID-19 vaccines reduce trasmission is still emerging, but as many people are now being vaccinated it is likely to be available soon. Also, as more (different) vaccines become available, the more likely it becomes that at least some will reduce transmission.

**See also: [CDC on the importance of COVID-19 vaccination for healthcare professionals](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/hcp.html)**

## Encouraging others to vaccinate
If you are a healthcare professional your recommendation and your example are likely to affect the attitudes and decisions of many other people. As the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention put it:

> "Healthcare workers are considered to be the most trusted source of vaccine-related information for patients. They are in the best position to understand hesitant patients, to respond to their worries and concerns, and to find ways of explaining to them the benefits of vaccination". [ECDC, 2015](https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/media/en/publications/Publications/vaccine-hesitancy-among-healthcare-workers.pdf)

The lack of a recommendation by healthcare professionals is an important barrier to vaccination in general (e.g., for childhood vaccinations [Smith et al., 2017](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2017.09.046)). Trust in medical and scientific experts is a positive predictors of willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine (e.g., [Kerr et al., 2020](DOI:10.1101/2020.12.09.20246439)) (see also [our page about trust in scientists](https://hackmd.io/@scibehC19vax/trust_scientists)).

Leading by example may also contribute to reducing hesitancy through social influences, including normative beliefs (what it is deemed to be the norm) and perceived social approval of vaccination.

Therefore, recommending the COVID-19 vaccine and leading by example are likely to increase vaccine acceptance in the general public, as well as among colleagues and other healthcare professionals.

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_{Page contributors: Teresa Gavaruzzi, Cornelia Betsch, Stephan Lewandowsky}

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