Safety Among Healthcare Workers: Infection and Vaccination in COVID-19 Pandemia

Dear Colleagues,

The focus of this Special Issue is “Safety Among Healthcare Workers: Infection and Vaccination in COVID-19 Pandemic”. Healthcare workers (HCWs) are an essential resource, and the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical role they play in delivering effective health care services. The safety of HCWs caring for COVID-19 patients around the world is paramount, as is reducing their likelihood of being infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Vaccination against COVID-19, accurate and up-to-date education, workplace practices, personal protective equipment, engineering, and administrative controls are fundamental when it comes to protecting HCWs against infection. The often-overwhelming nature of caring for COVID-19 patients has led to absences from work and increased the potential shortage of health professionals.  Overburdened HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic have experienced mental and physical health effects, adverse economic impacts, and compromises to their quality of life, and system support for identifying and treating mental health and well-being challenges faced by HCWs is often inadequate. By serving as direct and trusted sources of information for patients, HCWs play an influential role in vaccination, thereby also indirectly assuring their own safety. 

This Special Issue will focus on articles that advance our knowledge of practices to ensure the health and safety of HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic, including (but not limited to) vaccination. Suggested topics include: (1) successful interventions and other related efforts to increase vaccine uptake and to reduce the number of unvaccinated HCWs, (2) strategies used by Federal, State and Local governments to improve HCW safety, (3) measures taken to limit the spread of infection in medical facilities, and (4) health and mental health challenges and solutions for HCWs. We are also seeking work that considers HCWs’ decisions regarding vaccination and the influences of sociodemographic factors and characteristics of the communities in which they reside which could play a role in enhancing or reducing their safety.

Original articles, systematic reviews, short communications, and other types of articles on related topics are welcome. All manuscripts will follow standard journal peer-review practices, and those accepted for publication will appear in the “Safety Among Healthcare Workers: Infection and Vaccination in COVID-19 Pandemic”. We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Nicole M. Gatto
Prof. Dr. Deborah Freund
Dr. Anthony Firek
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Vaccines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.