--- title: The economics of vaccinating restaurant workers against hepatitis A date: 2005-04-27T14:54:30-07:00 author: Bill Marler canonical_url: "https://marlerclark.com/news_events/the-economics-of-vaccinating-restaurant-workers-against-hepatitis-a" section: News --- [All News](/news_events) / # The economics of vaccinating restaurant workers against hepatitis A Martin I. Meltzer – Craig N. Shapiro – Eric E. Mast and Christine Arcari Office of the Director, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mailstop D-59, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA Hepatitis Branch, Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA Received 4 February 2000; revised 26 July 2000; accepted 26 September 2000 Available online 22 February 2001. The economics of vaccinating restaurant workers against hepatitis A were studied using Monte Carlo simulation models, one with a restaurant-owner perspective, and one with a societal perspective. The restaurant model allowed for a different size, number of employees and employee turnover rate. Benefits were the avoidance of loss of business (including the possibility of bankruptcy) after publicity linking the restaurant to an outbreak associated with a case of hepatitis A in a food handler. Additional benefits in the societal model included reductions in costs of food handler-associated cases of hepatitis A. The outcome used was Net Present Value (NPV), allowing comparison between models. Regardless of the cost of vaccination ($50–140/employee), for a restauranteur to ensure that all employees were vaccinated at all times substantial costs were involved (i.e. negative NPV). Even a 75% probability of bankruptcy still resulted in negative NPVs at the 95th percentiles. For society, vaccination was only cost-saving (i.e. positive NPV) if done only during epidemics and if it cost <$20/employee. 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