Student Health Service officials want to know if you have time for a “quickie” — but they’re referring to flu shots.
After holding its first flu vaccine clinic of the school year, which was successful despite rainy weather, according to SHS Public Health Section Manager Sharon McMullen, SHS will host two more this month — one at Claire Fagin Hall on Wednesday and another at Vance Hall on Oct. 27.
Wednesday’s clinic will be geared more toward students at the School of Medicine, School of Nursing and School of Dental Medicine, all of which require students to receive flu immunization. While it is open to the entire Penn community, “it is a little off the beaten path so I will be interested to see how many non-health professional students attend,” McMullen wrote in an e-mail.
Nine hundred and seventeen students and 48 faculty and staff members were immunized at Thursday’s clinic.
Once vaccinated, participants took a survey, answering one of two questions. The first addressed individuals’ primary reasons for getting vaccinated. Of those who responded, 51 percent answered that the on-campus flu clinic was convenient. Meanwhile, 28 percent got vaccinated as a result of fear of contracting the flu and the remaining 21 percent found alternate reasons for participating, including because “my parents want me to,” it is “required for program/work” or “my friends are doing it,” according to Director of SHS Office of Health Promotion and Education Susan Villari.
Fang Liu, a School of Arts and Sciences graduate student, took the vaccine as a precaution, since this is her first year in the United States.
“We don’t know what kind of diseases we are going to meet,” she said.
The second survey question addressed how participants heard about the clinic. Thirty-six percent answered that they found out through social media, including e-mail, Facebook and FourSquare, 30 percent heard by word of mouth, 22 percent heard through notifications sent by SHS to students with particular health conditions and the remaining 12 percent learned of the clinic through print media, including posters and flyers.
According to Villari, the survey results will be used for future marketing efforts.
This year’s “Got time for a quickie?” campaign was brought to the Student Health Advisory Board to gauge student responses, according to advisory board member and College junior Neil Dubey.
The campaign was “designed to highlight the fact that our mass immunization clinics are super-fast,” according to McMullen.
College of Liberal and Professional Studies student and flu clinic volunteer Evin Luehrs agreed with the clinic’s efficiency, “especially compared to where I went to undergrad,” he said.
