Journal of the American Medical Directors Association
-
The vaccination of skilled nursing facility (SNF) staff is a critical component in the battle against COVID-19. Together, residents and staff constitute the single most vulnerable population in the pandemic. The health of these workers is completely entangled with the health of those they care for. Vaccination of SNF staff is key to increasing uptake of the vaccine, reducing health disparities, and reopening SNFs to visitors. Yet, as the vaccine rollout begins, some SNF staff are declining to be vaccinated. The purpose of this article is to describe reasons for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy reported by staff of skilled nursing facilities and understand factors that could potentially reduce hesitancy. ⋯ SNF staff indicate that seeing people like themselves receive the vaccination is more important than seeing public figures. We discuss the vaccination effort as a social enterprise and the need to develop long-term care provider-academic-community partnerships in response to COVID-19 and in expectation of future pandemics.