Influenza Vaccine Uptake, Hand Hygiene Practices, and Perceived Barriers in Decision Making.

The annual costs of influenza are in the billions of dollars, with employers bearing substantial burdens. Yet, influenza vaccine uptake is sub-optimal. A random survey was administered to employees at a Midwestern public university using mixed quantitative and qualitative methods to identify the rate, characteristics, and barriers of self-reported flu vaccine uptake during March-April of 2012. The lowest uptake was among adults, ages 18 to 49 (29.8%), even though they are included in universal recommendations. Multiple regression analysis adjusted for demographic confounders showed an increase in self-identified protective hand hygiene behavior among those who reported influenza vaccine uptake compared with those who did not. Qualitative thematic analysis revealed contextual accounts of why vaccine uptake was declined including structural, perceptual, and knowledge barriers. Implementation and evaluation of novel multicomponent worksite vaccine interventions tailored to reach young and middle-aged employees including utilization of risk communication is needed to facilitate increased uptake.

Outcomes of a pilot hand hygiene randomized cluster trial to reduce communicable infections among US office-based employees.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effectiveness of an office-based multimodal hand hygiene improvement intervention in reducing self-reported communicable infections and work-related absence. METHODS: A randomized cluster trial including an electronic training video, hand sanitizer, and educational posters (n = 131, intervention; n = 193, control). Primary outcomes include (1) self-reported acute respiratory infections (ARIs)/influenza-like illness (ILI) and/or gastrointestinal (GI) infections during the prior 30 days; and (2) related lost work days. Incidence rate ratios calculated using generalized linear mixed models with a Poisson distribution, adjusted for confounders and random cluster effects. RESULTS: A 31% relative reduction in self-reported combined ARI-ILI/GI infections (incidence rate ratio: 0.69; 95% confidence interval, 0.49 to 0.98). A 21% nonsignificant relative reduction in lost work days. CONCLUSIONS: An office-based multimodal hand hygiene improvement intervention demonstrated a substantive reduction in self-reported combined ARI-ILI/GI infections.

Hand hygiene performance and beliefs among public university employees.

The workplace is an important location to access community members, and employers have a direct interest in employee well-being. A survey administered to a random sample of employees at a Midwestern US university tested the ability of a model informed by the theory of planned behavior to predict hand hygiene practices and beliefs using structural equation modeling. Questions demonstrated acceptable validity and reliability. Constructs predicted self-reported hand hygiene behaviors, and hand hygiene behaviors reduced the odds of reporting sickness from respiratory tract and gastrointestinal infections. The findings support multi-modal hand hygiene improvement interventions.

Workplace hand hygiene and wellness: a survey of knowledge, beliefs, and practices.

Community hand hygiene interventions have reduced the spread of infectious disease in elementary schools, daycare centers, and private homes. Despite this success, and the potential for reducing workplace absenteeism and presenteeism, few peer-reviewed hand hygiene intervention studies among workers have been published. This research used the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to guide the development of a model to understand and predict motivations for performing hand hygiene, and to examine related illness, absenteeism, and presenteeism among employees from 39 bank branches in Ohio. Although the TPB has been used extensively to elucidate hand hygiene practices among employees in the health care and food industries, little is known about the ability of the TPB to predict hand hygiene practices among workers in public settings. These survey findings indicate a need for hand hygiene improvement, and support the use of attitudinal beliefs and social norms to guide multimodal approaches for workplace hand hygiene interventions.