About One Third of Older Americans Receive Shingles Vaccine

A report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) published in NCHS Data Brief found the population of Americans 60 years and older who report receiving vaccinations for shingles has steadily climbed since 2008 and leveled off in the past few years, reports Medscape . The number of people in this demographic who were vaccinated rose from 6.7 percent in 2008 to 34.5 percent in 2018. Rates of people who reported receiving at least one vaccination with Zostavax or Shingrix varied by factors like Hispanic origin, education, and family income — but surprisingly, rates did not vary significantly between men and women. "Although the percentage who had ever received a shingles vaccine among women aged 60 and over was higher than that among men in this age group, this difference was not statistically significant," said the CDC's Emily Terlizzi. Meanwhile, non-Hispanic white adults were more likely to report receiving the vaccine than Hispanic and non-Hispanic black adults, and also were about twice as likely to report vaccinations than Hispanic and non-Hispanic black adults. Self-reported vaccinations rose in association with higher education and family income levels, with 20.4 percent of poor adults saying they were being vaccinated, versus 38.4 percent of adults who were not poor. The leveling off of vaccination rates around 34 percent in recent years could be due to multiple factors, including wide variance in cultural attitudes to vaccines and marketplace shortages.