Many Health Care Workers Won't Show Up in Flu Pandemic

Poll results a 'wake-up call' for better preparedness training, experts say

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

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TUESDAY, April 18 (HealthDay News) -- With many Americans worried about their safety should a flu pandemic occur, there's little reassurance from a survey that finds that close to half of U.S. public health-care workers would not show up for work if such a pandemic occurred.

In fact, two-thirds of the 308 employees polled said their work would put them at risk of contracting the potentially deadly flu should an outbreak come to pass.

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"Forty-two percent of the health care workers surveyed said they would not respond in the event of a flu pandemic," said study co-author Dr. Daniel J. Barnett, an instructor at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Public Health Preparedness in Baltimore.

"The most important factor, in terms of showing up for work, was how much the individual employee perceived his or her role [to be] in the agency's response," he added. The less important an employee thought his or her role was, the less likely they were to report for work, Barrett said.

Just 40 percent of the employees felt that they would be asked to show up should a pandemic become a reality.

In addition, only 33 percent thought they were knowledgeable about the health impact of pandemic flu, Barnett said.

The survey was conducted between March 2005-July 2005 and involved employees of three Maryland county health departments. The findings appear in the April issue of the journal BMC Public Health.

The willingness to report for work was lowest among technical and support staff, Barnett said. These include computer data entry staff, clerical workers and receptionists. "In many cases, these are some of the people who will be on the frontline interfacing with the public," he noted.

The implication of these findings is that more training of health care workers is needed. "We need to do a better job of training the public health workforce," Barnett said. "Not just in ability to respond, but in willingness to respond," he added.

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