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  • Press Release

    AAMC Joins National Hospital Association Statement on COVID-19 Vaccinations for Health Care Workers

    John Buarotti, Sr. Public Relations Specialist

    Five national hospital organizations—America’s Essential Hospitals, the American Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Catholic Health Association of the United States, and the Children’s Hospital Association—released the following statement:

    "The health, safety and well-being of health care personnel – and the patients and communities they serve – is the highest priority for America’s hospitals and health systems. The evidence supporting COVID-19 vaccination is clear, strong and growing. COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective at reducing substantially the risks of becoming infected, spreading the infection to others and becoming severely ill or dying from the disease.

    For health care personnel, the COVID-19 vaccines are an especially powerful tool because they not only provide strong protection against the virus to vaccinated staff, but also reduce significantly the likelihood of inadvertently carrying and spreading COVID-19 to patients and peers. The protections afforded by the COVID-19 vaccines are imperative in health care settings, which treat people with weakened immune systems who are unable to be vaccinated or to whom vaccination is not yet available, including children and infants.

    As representatives of America’s hospitals and health systems, we stand united in strongly urging all health care personnel to get the COVID-19 vaccination, given the disease’s known and substantial risks to the unvaccinated of severe illness, death and long-term complications. We encourage hospitals to maintain their ongoing efforts to educate staff and their communities about COVID-19 vaccinations.

    We also support hospitals and health systems that implement mandatory vaccination policies or any other reasonable steps to achieving high levels of COVID-19 vaccination within their organizations, with the appropriate accommodations for medical or religious reasons. Local factors and circumstances, along with relevant local, state and federal laws and regulations, will shape each organization’s chosen strategy."


    The AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) is a nonprofit association dedicated to improving the health of people everywhere through medical education, health care, medical research, and community collaborations. Its members are all 158 U.S. medical schools accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education; 13 accredited Canadian medical schools; approximately 400 academic health systems and teaching hospitals, including Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and more than 70 academic societies. Through these institutions and organizations, the AAMC leads and serves America’s medical schools, academic health systems and teaching hospitals, and the millions of individuals across academic medicine, including more than 193,000 full-time faculty members, 96,000 medical students, 153,000 resident physicians, and 60,000 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the biomedical sciences. Following a 2022 merger, the Alliance of Academic Health Centers and the Alliance of Academic Health Centers International broadened participation in the AAMC by U.S. and international academic health centers.