Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Verelst, Frederik
• Beutels, Philippe
• Hens, Niel
• Willem, Lander

Titel

Workplace influenza vaccination to reduce employee absenteeism: An economic analysis from the employers’ perspective

Ist Teil von

• Vaccine, 2021-04, Vol.39 (14), p.2005-2015

Ort / Verlag

Netherlands: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• •Workplace vaccination is an efficient and inexpensive intervention.•On average, we found workplace influenza vaccination to be cost-saving.•Employers could have saved €10 per vaccinated employee per year between 2011 and 2018.•Influenza vaccination reduces the burden of disease and absenteeism among employees.•Vaccinated employees act as a barrier and reduce influenza transmission in society. Each year, up to 10% of unvaccinated adults contracts seasonal influenza, with half of this proportion developing symptoms. As a result, employers experience significant economic losses in terms of employee absenteeism. Influenza vaccines can be instrumental in reducing this burden. Workplace vaccination is expected to reduce employee absenteeism more than linearly as a result of positive externalities. It remains unclear whether workplace influenza vaccination yields a positive return on investment. We simulated the spread of influenza in the seasons 2011–12 up to 2017–18 in Belgium by means of a compartmental transmission model. We accounted for age-specific social contact patterns and included reduced contact behavior when symptomatically infected. We simulated the impact of employer-funded influenza vaccination at the workplace and performed a cost-benefit analysis to assess the employers’ return on workplace vaccination. Furthermore, we look into the cost-benefit of rewarding vaccinated employees by offering an additional day off. Workplace vaccination reduced the burden of influenza both on the workplace and in the population at large. Compared to the current vaccine coverage – 21% in the population at large – an employee vaccine coverage of 90% could avert an additional 355 000 cases, of which about 150 000 in the employed population and 205 000 in the unemployed population. While seasonal influenza vaccination has been cost-saving on average at about €10 per vaccinated employee, the cost-benefit analysis was prone to between-season variability. Vaccinated employees can serve as a barrier to limit the spread of influenza in the population, reducing the attack rate by 78% at an employee coverage of 90%. While workplace vaccination is relatively inexpensive (due to economies of scale) and convenient, the return on investment is volatile. Government subsidies can be pivotal to encourage employers to provide vaccination at the workplace with positive externalities to society as a whole.