QUEBEC CITY — Promoting flu shots among sports team members is worth the effort, but it may be more difficult to convince the team's support staff, coaches, and trainers to follow suit, according to Dr. Robert McCormack, chief medical officer for the Canadian Olympic Team.
Dr. McCormack, who is also an orthopedic surgeon at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, spoke at the joint annual meeting of the Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine and the Association Québécoise des Médecins du Sport about his successful efforts to promote flu vaccination among members of the Canadian 2006 Winter Olympic team.
“To my knowledge, there was not one case of influenza,” he said, noting that during the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, influenza devastated teams from all over the world.
But whether it's an Olympic team or not, immunization is one of the final stepping stones to a team's and athlete's success, especially if one considers the years of training that precede these events, Dr. McCormack said.
After the campaign before the 2006 Winter Olympics, Dr. McCormack and his colleagues immunized 76% of the Canadian team's athletes. But, those rates dipped to 66% for the support staff and 40% for coaches, resulting in an immunization rate of only 65% for the team overall.
Reasons given for not getting immunized centered on a lack of confidence in the benefits and concerns about the risks, said Dr. McCormack, who emphasized that the way in which the suggestion of immunization is presented is important.
“It really boils down to framing. You can report the percentage of people who will still get the flu and who will have side effects, or you can focus on the percentage of people who will be disease free and with no side effects,” he said. And it may be even more difficult to promote immunization in individualized sports: The Canadian short-track skating, hockey, and curling teams, for example, had immunizations rates of 100%, whereas in decentralized, individual sports, such as snowboarding and figure skating, the rates were only 30%.
The Canadian Women's Hockey team won gold at the 2006 Winter Olympics. All the players were immunized. Courtesy Dr. Robert McCormack