What you need to know about immunizing your adult patients

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May 2009 · Vol. 21, No. 05

What you need to know about immunizing your adult patients

Some communicable diseases expose adults to special risk; others are concentrated in certain populations. Do you know which adults need immunization—and when?

Fast Track

Influenza can aggravate chronic medical conditions and causes 36,000 deaths each year in the United States

Even women who are already infected with HPV can benefit from vaccination because the vaccine may protect them against other strains

Adults account for only 5% of reported chickenpox cases in the United States but approximately 35% of deaths

The hepatitis B virus is transmitted 50 to 100 times more easily than HIV

All women of childbearing age should be offered the MMR vaccine because of the rubella component

Vaccinate all women with Tdap immediately postpartum if their last tetanus-diphtheria booster was 2 to 10 years earlier

Vaccinate anyone age 60 or older against shingles, even if they have already had the disease

IN THIS ARTICLE

Are you ready to assume a larger role in adult immunization?
Adult immunization schedule
Resources for clinicians

Janelle Yates

Senior Editor

The statistics are troubling: Fifty thousand American adults die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases. Hundreds of thousands more are hospitalized and miss work because of infections that could be prevented with vaccines. Yet most Americans continue to think of vaccines as benefiting only children. And busy physicians wonder how they will fit yet another responsibility—educating the patient about her need for vaccination against some infectious diseases—into an already overloaded schedule.

“Vaccines are as crucial to long-term health as are screenings for certain cancers,” says William Schaffner, MD, president-elect of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) and Chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “Unfortunately, many adults associate vaccinations with childhood, or assume influenza is the only vaccine they need.”

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