Q&A: The Importance of Vaccine Literacy, Uptake During Flu Season

Ruth Carrico, PhD, DNP, APRN, is a professor at the University of Louisville’s Division of Infectious Disease and co-founder of the Infection Prevention Institute. She recently joined Drug Topics to discuss the common themes and trends she’s seen throughout the population during the winter months, when infectious diseases like influenza and COVID-19 are most dangerous to the public.

“Unfortunately, every year, we see thousands of patients who require hospitalization, thousands of patients who require care in an intensive care unit or that may require a ventilator, and unfortunately, we see adults and children that become ill with influenza and don't survive,” said Carrico.

Despite a recent global pandemic and a boost in infectious diseases nearly every winter season, vaccination rates continue to decline because of what experts believe is a slew of various contributing factors. From the circulation of untrusted information or overall vaccine fatigue lingering from the COVID-19 pandemic, not as many individuals are completing their annual immunization.

Vaccination rates continue to decline because of what experts believe is a slew of various contributing factors. | image credit: Africa Studio / stock.adobe.com

Drug Topics: Why is it so important for people to get their flu shot and their updated COVID 19 vaccine during this time of year?

Ruth Carrico: These are incredibly important topics, and I'm really delighted to be able to partner with Sanofi this flu season and really talk about the importance of annual flu vaccine and addressing the individuals that are particularly at risk: those with chronic health conditions. Certainly, influenza is a disease of breathing, as is COVID-19 and RSV and other respiratory viruses. Ensuring or doing what we can to take steps toward safety is critical.

READ MORE: Key Recommendations for 2024-2025 Respiratory Virus Season | NCPA 2024

Influenza particularly can have some life-threatening, life-altering complications, including pneumonia, serious heart conditions, even if individuals are otherwise healthy. Influenza takes advantage of these underlying health conditions, and it may worsen preexisting conditions, including heart or lung disease. In addition, as I mentioned, this is a disease of breathing. All of us breathe, all of us are around others that breathe. When you are thinking of an influenza in transmission, and thinking about your own health as well as the health of others, it's a great reminder that this is a chance to not only address your health with vaccination, but also then think about being a member of a community and a family and how this impacts others.

Drug Topics: What is one thing that both health care providers and patients alike should understand heading into the 2024 flu season?

Ruth Carrico: I think the recognition that influenza is a disease that we see just about every year. Unfortunately, every year we see thousands of patients who require hospitalization, thousands of patients who require care in an intensive care unit or that may require a ventilator, and unfortunately, we see adults and children that become ill with influenza and don't survive. And this is so sad because we know one of the biggest elements of our toolkit is vaccination.

Vaccines and vaccination go a long way in helping prevent that disease and those devastating consequences. So I think talking about the importance of vaccination, influenza vaccination, the importance of flu as a disease, we need to respect, and then doing what we need to do to answer patient questions, so that not only they are confident that the vaccine is safe for them, but they're also confident that the vaccine can go a long way in helping reduce their risks associated with influenza and enabling them to do what all of us want to do, and that is we want to be able to live our lives in a healthy manner, and able to do all of the activities that that we have planned without being sidetracked by this type of infection.

Drug Topics: When it comes to vaccine uptake in general among the US population, what exactly have we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic?

Ruth Carrico: During COVID-19, we learned that not only are your underlying health conditions important, but your whole notion of health awareness, health promotion, health prevention becomes important. We know that we’ve always struggled with widespread understanding about influenza and its severity and the importance of vaccination. I think when we began to see the combination with COVID-19 and we had increased vaccination opportunities, we also, at the same time, had increased vaccination questions. We've been challenged with, how do we make sure that we have credible, trusted information for communities.

Looking back to CDC to provide us with information about what is the presence of these respiratory illnesses? What data do we have regarding transmission? What is the science behind the importance of vaccination? And then, as a health care provider, it then kind of begins to put that back in our ballpark. Think about how do we talk with our patients about preventing disease? How do we start with where they are? As a provider, we always talk about, go to where the patient is. Start with their concerns, their questions, their fears, their thoughts, and then we deal with those and we try to make sure that we are providing best information for that individual, because I feel confidently that all of us want to have the best health that we can. We want to make the best decisions, the right decisions for us, for our family. Starting with credible information, credible sources with health care providers is the first step in being able to address many of those questions.

READ MORE: With Fewer Primary Care Providers Offering Vaccinations, Independent Pharmacies Can Take Advantage | NCPA 2024

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