Influenza Vaccination Uptake in the General Italian Population During the 2020-2021 Flu Season: Data from the EPICOVID-19 Online Web-Based Survey

Overview

Journal Vaccines (Basel)

Date 2022 Feb 26

PMID 35214751

Authors

Andrea Giacomelli

Massimo Galli

Stefania Maggi

Marianna Noale

Caterina Trevisan

Gabriele Pagani

Raffaele Antonelli-Incalzi

Sabrina Molinaro

Luca Bastiani

Liliana Cori

Fabrizio Bianchi

Nithiya Jesuthasan

Federica Prinelli

Fulvio Adorni

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

To assess influenza vaccine uptake during the 2020/2021 flu season and compare it with that of the 2019/2020 flu season among respondents to the second phase of the web-based EPICOVID-19 survey, we performed an observational web-based nationwide online survey (January-February 2021) in which respondents to the first survey (April-June 2020) were contacted and asked to complete a second questionnaire. Factors associated with vaccine uptake in the 2020/2021 flu season were assessed by applying a multivariable multinomial logistic regression model. Out of the 198,822 respondents to the first survey, 41,473 (20.9%) agreed to fill out the follow-up questionnaire; of these, 8339 (20.1%) were vaccinated only during the 2020/2021 season, 8828 (21.3%) were vaccinated during both seasons and 22,710 (54.8%) were vaccinated in neither season. Educational level (medium (aOR 1.33 95%CI 1.13-1.56) and high (aOR 1.69 95%CI 1.44-1.97) vs. low) and socio-economic deprivation according to SES scoring (1 point aOR 0.83 (95%CI 0.78-0.89), 2 aOR 0.68 (95%CI 0.60-0.77) points or ≥3 points aOR 0.42 (95%CI 0.28-0.45) vs. 0 points) were found to be associated with flu vaccine uptake. Our study shows that social determinants seemed to affect flu vaccination uptake and identifies specific categories of the population to target during future influenza vaccination campaigns.

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