Study highlights risk of low COVID vaccine uptake in prison staff

Stanford University researchers report that 61% of custody staff and 36% of healthcare staff at California state prisons were unvaccinated against COVID-19 as of Jun 30, 2021, posing risks to inmates, other staff, and the surrounding community.The findings, published late last week in JAMA Health Forum, also showed that unvaccinated staff were more likely than their vaccinated counterparts to be younger, have previous COVID-19 infection, work with other unvaccinated staff, and live in communities with relatively low vaccine uptake.The study involved 23,472 custody staff (prison guards, etc) and 7,617 healthcare workers with direct contact with inmates at 33 of 35 California state prisons from Dec 22, 2020, through Jun 30, 2021, when COVID vaccines were readily available.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation provided data on anonymized person-day level for staff and inmates, COVID-19 testing, demographics, and infections among prisoners through Sep 25, 2021.Most staff were 30 to 49 years old.

Most custody staff were men (84%), and most healthcare workers were women (71%). Two thirds of custody staff were Hispanic (38%) or White (28%), and half of healthcare staff were Asian (28%) or White (23%).Higher share of unvaccinated custody workers than inmatesIn total, 6,103 custody workers (26%) and 3,961 healthcare staff (52%) had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in the first 2 months of vaccine availability, and then uptake leveled off.

As of the end of the study period, 61% of custody workers and 37% of healthcare staff were still unvaccinated.The proportions of the unvaccinated varied widely among the prisons in the sample, from 37% to 86% of custody staff and 26% to 79% of healthcare