Article of the Month

The Effect of Influenza Vaccination for the Elderly on Hospitalization and Mortality: An Observational Study With a Regression Discontinuity Design
Anderson ML, Dobkin C, Gorry D. The Effect of Influenza Vaccination for the Elderly on Hospitalization and Mortality: An Observational Study With a Regression Discontinuity Design. Ann Intern Med. 2020; [Epub ahead of print 3 March 2020].

This is an observational study of 170 million episodes of care in England and Wales. They looked at the effectiveness of the flu vaccine on morbidity and mortality of patients 55-75 years old by measuring the hospitalization and mortality rates by month of age. The results indicated that there is no evidence that flu vaccination reduced hospitalizations or mortality in the elderly. This is a significant challenge to the current strategy and should bring up further discussion in the health care community on how better to address the flu in elderly patients. 

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