Flu vaccination rates for Oregon healthcare workers fell to 52%

Bend, Ore. (KTVZ) --- Influenza vaccination rates among Oregon health care workers continued to decline during the 2025-2026 flu season, dropping to 52%, according to new state data published today.

The rate represents a sharp decrease from the 2019-2020 season, when 85% of health care personnel in the state received a flu shot, according to the Health care Worker influenza Vaccination Dashboard from the Oregon Health Authority's Health care-Associated Infections Program.

Just over half of Oregon's nearly 150,000 eligible health care workers received an influenza vaccination during the 2025-2026 season, marking a 2 percentage point decrease from the prior season and a 33 percentage point drop over six years.

Oregon evaluates its health care worker vaccination performance against the former federal Healthy People 2020 benchmark of 90% coverage. Meeting that target in the 2025-2026 season would have required vaccinations for an additional 55,433 health care workers across the state.

Ambulatory surgery centers reported the highest health care worker influenza vaccination rate during the 2025-2026 season at 62%, according to state data. Hospitals followed at 57%, dialysis centers at 51%, inpatient psychiatric facilities at 33% and nursing facilities at 25%.

Ambulatory surgery centers, dialysis centers and inpatient psychiatric facilities were the only facility categories to see year-over-year increases in worker vaccination rates between the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 seasons. Dialysis centers have maintained an upward trend since the 2021-2022 season, when their rate was 27%. Conversely, nursing facilities experienced the largest decline, dropping from 30% in the 2024-2025 season to 25% in the 2025-2026 season.

Dr. Dat Tran, medical director of the HAI Program at the Oregon Health Authority, expressed concern over the low vaccination levels across care facilities.

“While we encourage everyone in Oregon to get the flu vaccine, it's especially important for people in the health care field to be vaccinated,” Tran said. “The people being cared for in health care settings often have health conditions that make them particularly susceptible to severe health outcomes and even death.”

Tran noted that higher vaccination rates help limit virus transmission among facility staff, reducing absenteeism, lost productivity and health care costs.

“We know all too well from the pandemic how an outbreak of a highly infectious respiratory virus in a health care setting can affect hospital staffing levels and patient care,” Tran said. “A health care workforce that's highly vaccinated against influenza can help reduce the risk and impact of influenza outbreaks in health care settings.”

The proportion of eligible health care workers who declined vaccination rose to 19% during the 2025-2026 season, up from 18% the previous year. Additionally, the percentage of workers with unknown vaccination status reached 29%, marking the highest level in seven flu seasons and a notable increase from 7% during the 2019-2020 season.

Potential contributing factors identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention include vaccine fatigue, reduced emphasis on flu vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic, lower perceived risk and variations in workplace vaccination policies and access.

“It's difficult to know from these data alone why Oregon's documented health care worker influenza vaccination rate has declined,” Tran said. “Oregon also saw the percentage of health care workers with unknown vaccination status rise from 7% in 2019-2020 to 29% in 2025-2026, so documentation may be part of the picture. However, unknown status does not tell us whether an individual worker was vaccinated and the dashboard cannot determine how much of the decline reflects vaccination behavior versus incomplete documentation.”

The Oregon Health Authority requires annual reporting from five facility types, with facilities submitting aggregate counts of workers who were vaccinated, declined, had medical contraindications or had unknown status. To assist facilities, state health officials have published a toolkit and recommended measures such as hosting mass vaccination fairs, offering free vaccines to staff, establishing incentive programs and requiring formal declination forms for workers who forgo vaccination.