Data show dwindling flu vaccination rates among Oregon health care workers

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Fewer Oregon health care workers have received their influenza shots since COVID-19 first spread throughout the state.

About 54% of the employees surveyed during the 2024-2025 respiratory virus season were vaccinated against the flu during the 2024-’25 season, the Oregon Health Authority’s Healthcare Worker Influenza Vaccination Dashboard shows.

According to the agency, this represents a 11% drop from the previous year — and a 36% drop when compared to the 2019-2020 season.

“This is very worrying,” Dat Tran, medical director of OHA’s Healthcare-Associated Infections Program, said in a release. “We are not seeing flu vaccination rates among health care workers keeping pace with flu activity during respiratory virus seasons, even as that activity returns to higher, pre-pandemic levels.”

The public health agency requires ambulatory surgery centers, dialysis centers, hospitals, inpatient psychiatric facilities and nursing facilities to self-report this data every year. Officials found that ambulatory surgery centers had the highest vaccination rate, at 61%, with hospitals closely behind at 60%.

Around 50% of dialysis center workers were vaccinated, compared to those at nursing facilities and inpatient psychiatric facilities — which had the lowest rate at 30%.

According to OHA, dialysis centers and inpatient psychiatric facilities were the only ones that saw a year-over-year increase in vaccination rates. The agency noted that the rate for dialysis center workers has continued to increase since it stood at 27% during the 2021-2022 season.

Officials also reported that 18% of health care workers declined the vaccine both last year and the year before. About 28% of workers reported “having an unknown vaccination status” during the 2024-25 season, a 7% increase from the prior period — which OHA said “may contribute to low vaccination rates and illustrates the need for facilities to improve documentation of vaccination status.”

The agency stated that increased vaccination rates would protect both patients and workers, while reducing “absenteeism” among the workforce as well as health care costs.