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Vaccination Rates are Associated With Functional Proximity But Not Base Proximity of Vaccination Clinics

BACKGROUND: Routine annual influenza vaccinations are recommended for persons 6 months of age and older, but less than half of US adults get vaccinated. Many employers offer employees free influenza vaccinations at workplace clinics, but even then take-up is low. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether empl...

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Autores principales: Beshears, John, Choi, James J., Laibson, David I., Madrian, Brigitte C., Reynolds, Gwendolyn I.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868403/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27177295
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/MLR.0000000000000523
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author Beshears, John
Choi, James J.
Laibson, David I.
Madrian, Brigitte C.
Reynolds, Gwendolyn I.
author_facet Beshears, John
Choi, James J.
Laibson, David I.
Madrian, Brigitte C.
Reynolds, Gwendolyn I.
author_sort Beshears, John
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Routine annual influenza vaccinations are recommended for persons 6 months of age and older, but less than half of US adults get vaccinated. Many employers offer employees free influenza vaccinations at workplace clinics, but even then take-up is low. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether employees are significantly more likely to get vaccinated if they have a higher probability of walking by the clinic for reasons other than vaccination. METHOD: We obtained data from an employer with a free workplace influenza vaccination clinic. Using each employee’s building entry/exit swipe card data, we test whether functional proximity—the likelihood that the employee walks by the clinic for reasons other than vaccination—predicts whether the employee gets vaccinated at the clinic. We also test whether base proximity—the inverse of walking distance from the employee’s desk to the clinic—predicts vaccination probability. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 1801 employees of a health benefits administrator that held a free workplace influenza vaccination clinic. RESULTS: A 2 SD increase in functional proximity is associated with a 6.4 percentage point increase in the probability of vaccination (total vaccination rate at company=40%), even though the average employee’s desk is only 166 meters from the clinic. Base proximity does not predict vaccination probability. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Minor changes in the environment can have substantial effects on the probability of vaccination. If these results generalize, health systems should emphasize functional proximity over base proximity when locating preventive health services.
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spelling pubmed-48684032016-06-07 Vaccination Rates are Associated With Functional Proximity But Not Base Proximity of Vaccination Clinics Beshears, John Choi, James J. Laibson, David I. Madrian, Brigitte C. Reynolds, Gwendolyn I. Med Care Brief Report BACKGROUND: Routine annual influenza vaccinations are recommended for persons 6 months of age and older, but less than half of US adults get vaccinated. Many employers offer employees free influenza vaccinations at workplace clinics, but even then take-up is low. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether employees are significantly more likely to get vaccinated if they have a higher probability of walking by the clinic for reasons other than vaccination. METHOD: We obtained data from an employer with a free workplace influenza vaccination clinic. Using each employee’s building entry/exit swipe card data, we test whether functional proximity—the likelihood that the employee walks by the clinic for reasons other than vaccination—predicts whether the employee gets vaccinated at the clinic. We also test whether base proximity—the inverse of walking distance from the employee’s desk to the clinic—predicts vaccination probability. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 1801 employees of a health benefits administrator that held a free workplace influenza vaccination clinic. RESULTS: A 2 SD increase in functional proximity is associated with a 6.4 percentage point increase in the probability of vaccination (total vaccination rate at company=40%), even though the average employee’s desk is only 166 meters from the clinic. Base proximity does not predict vaccination probability. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Minor changes in the environment can have substantial effects on the probability of vaccination. If these results generalize, health systems should emphasize functional proximity over base proximity when locating preventive health services. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins 2016-06 2016-05-23 /pmc/articles/PMC4868403/ /pubmed/27177295 http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/MLR.0000000000000523 Text en Copyright © 2016 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND), where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
spellingShingle Brief Report
Beshears, John
Choi, James J.
Laibson, David I.
Madrian, Brigitte C.
Reynolds, Gwendolyn I.
Vaccination Rates are Associated With Functional Proximity But Not Base Proximity of Vaccination Clinics
title Vaccination Rates are Associated With Functional Proximity But Not Base Proximity of Vaccination Clinics
title_full Vaccination Rates are Associated With Functional Proximity But Not Base Proximity of Vaccination Clinics
title_fullStr Vaccination Rates are Associated With Functional Proximity But Not Base Proximity of Vaccination Clinics
title_full_unstemmed Vaccination Rates are Associated With Functional Proximity But Not Base Proximity of Vaccination Clinics
title_short Vaccination Rates are Associated With Functional Proximity But Not Base Proximity of Vaccination Clinics
title_sort vaccination rates are associated with functional proximity but not base proximity of vaccination clinics
topic Brief Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868403/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27177295
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/MLR.0000000000000523
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