Primary Outcome Measures:
- - Rate of influenza immunization among subjects
Secondary Outcome Measures:
- Change in knowledge, attitutes, and beliefs regarding influenza and influenza immunization.
- Changes in health behaviors around influenza (e.g. hand washing and cough etiquette).
- General health outcomes related to respiratory illnesses (e.g. number of influenza-like illnesses, number of physician visits, number of missed work days).
- Rate of influenza immunization among subject household members.
In response to the call for research of the new Health Protection Research Initiative at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), we propose to adapt newly mature informatics technology to shift the paradigm for health alerting and health promotion in the workplace. The goal is to firmly ground these activities on real time information collected from and delivered to employees, in an interactive, secure, electronic environment. We will study influenza prevention and control, an archetype of public health practice requiring surveillance, communication, and timely influence of health-related behaviors. Complex information gleaned from surveillance will be processed, translated and provided to employees. The goal is to provide employees with timely, individualized health promotion messages to improve their knowledge, attitudes and beliefs regarding influenza and to increase the rate of seasonal influenza immunization for them and their household members. The approach will be evaluated in a group randomized design at several worksites of a major corporation.