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In Pandemic Study, Health Workers Stay Home

Posted on: Tuesday, 18 April 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Anita Manning

Nearly half of the public health workforce, the majority of them clerical and technical support staff, would stay home during a flu pandemic, results of a new survey suggest.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel surveyed 308 public health workers in Maryland and found 46.2% said they would be unlikely to report for work during a pandemic, says study co-author Daniel Barnett of the Bloomberg School's Center for Public Health Preparedness.

"We found the results concerning," he says. The Department of Health and Human Services has asked health departments to create response plans to a flu pandemic, which health officials say is inevitable. Barnett and co-authors say the findings suggests that pandemic preparedness training programs need to address what will be expected of all employees, along with their concerns for the safety of themselves and their families.

Two-thirds of employees (66%) felt "they'd put themselves at risk if they reported to work in a pandemic," Barnett says.

Less than a third believe they would play an important role in the health agency during a local outbreak. That factor was the strongest influence on an employee's willingness to work, the authors report. Employees who believe their work is vital, mainly doctors, nurses and other professionals, were most likely to say they'd work during a pandemic. Those who feel their work is not important, mainly clerical and support staff, were the least likely to say they would continue to work in a pandemic.

The study results, published today in the online journal BMC Public Health, are based on a survey taken in three rural Maryland counties, which are comparable in size to 96% of public health agencies. The results may not hold true for health departments in big cities or other regions, says co-author Saad Omer of Johns Hopkins. The study will be expanded to include other parts of the country, he says.

The idea that so many public health workers may not show up for work is "a little unsettling," Omer says, but "you can't blame the public health workforce," which after a series of events from the anthrax attacks to Hurricane Katrina, is being asked to take on new roles. "These preparedness issues push public health workers almost into the category of first responders."

Health department preparedness plans should make it clear that in a public health crisis, all health department employees would be needed, including support staff, Barnett says. "The people who answer the telephones are on the front lines of risk communication."

Georges Benjamin, director of the American Public Health Association, agrees. He says support staff members may not see their role as important "because we have not treated them as essential personnel. In this setting, where everybody's second job is emergency preparedness, it means we have not done a good enough job integrating them into our preparedness plans.

"We should be making sure people know they have a secondary duty."

(c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

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