Menu of state healthcare facility hepatitis B vaccination laws

Details

• Personal Author:
  Popoola, Adebola ; Bhatti, Alexandra ; Hulkower, Rachel ; Pepin, Dawn ; Hoss, Aila
• Corporate Authors:
  Public Health Law Program (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.)) ; National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (U.S.) ; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.). Office for State, Tribal, Local and Territorial Support.
• Description:
  This menu is one of a series of menus assessing vaccination requirements for patients and healthcare workers in healthcare facilities. This menu specifically assesses hepatitis B (HepB) vaccination requirements. Healthcare facilities across the country are increasingly requiring healthcare workers and patients to be vaccinated for certain vaccine-preventable diseases to reduce disease outbreaks. In some instances, facilities are establishing these requirements under mandates set forth by state statutes or regulations. Depending on the vaccine, the legal requirements might apply to either patients, healthcare workers, or both, and can include the following types of provisions:
  
  • Assessment Requirements: Requiring a healthcare facility to assess a healthcare worker or patient’s vaccination status
  
  • Administrative Requirements for Offering Vaccination: Requiring a healthcare facility to offer a vaccination to a healthcare worker or patient
  
  • Administrative Requirements for Ensuring Vaccination: Requiring a healthcare facility to ensure that a healthcare worker or patient has been vaccinated, unless vaccination is specifically exempted or declined
  
  Hepatitis B is a serious disease caused by a virus that attacks the liver. The virus, which is called hepatitis B virus (HBV), can cause lifelong infection, cirrhosis (scarring) of the liver, liver cancer, liver failure, and death. HBV is transmitted when blood, semen, or another body fluid from a person infected with the virus enters the body of someone who is not infected. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommends that all children receive their first dose of HepB vaccine at birth and complete the vaccine series by age 6–18 months. ACIP also recommends that older children and adolescents who did not previously receive the HepB vaccine be vaccinated.
  
  In addition, HBV has long been recognized as an occupational risk for healthcare workers, including trainees. The virus remains infectious for prolonged periods on environmental surfaces and is transmissible in the absence of visible blood. In healthcare settings, this contact occurs primarily through contaminated needles, syringes, or other sharp instruments. Healthcare workers do not recognize all exposures to potentially infectious blood or body fluids and, even if exposures are recognized, often do not seek post-exposure prophylactic management. In serologic studies conducted in the United States during the 1970s, healthcare workers had a prevalence of HBV infection approximately 10 times that of the general population.
  
  This menu includes states laws collected from WestlawNext during January 5–20, 2016.
  
  menu-hepb.pdf
  
  
• Subjects:
  Health Facilities Hepatitis B Vaccines Hospitals Legislation As Topic Public Health Practice/standards State Government Vaccination/legislation & Jurisprudence
• Document Type:
  Report
• Pages in Document:
  24 numbered pages
• Collection(s):
  Stephen B. Thacker CDC Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:c6464d78cf34bffa3095664ecd40536f87f6a7ab741394a4b1e9739d44a27881
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/46795/cdc_46795_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 867.53 KB ]