Vaccination for Healthy Aging

By Janine Small, Pfizer

I have an exciting trip to Helsinki coming up in July — to speak at the Silver Economy Forum, hosted by the Finnish Government and the Global Coalition on Aging. The Forum will explore new thinking and solutions to meet the needs of an aging population, as social demographics shift.

As I prepare for my panel discussion, I’ve been thinking in particular about how the power of vaccines can be leveraged for people of all ages — not just kids.

We are often reminded of the fact that people around the world are living longer than ever before — it’s estimated that by next year, there will be more people aged 60+ than children under the age of five. It’s great that we’re living longer — but being healthy in older age is what really makes a positive difference to people’s lives.

How can we stay healthy?

As we get older, we’re more vulnerable to illness. Around 80% of older adults have at least one chronic condition — hypertension, high cholesterol, heart disease and arthritis are some of the most common culprits. And as the so-called ‘silver’ population grows, primary, secondary and long-term care need to supply more support to meet the demand — an aging population puts significant pressure on healthcare systems and society as a whole.

Currently, healthcare systems tend to focus on treating ill health — but shifting the priority onto preventing ill health has the potential to sustain healthcare systems through this huge demographic shift. This is where vaccines can play a really important role.

Most of us know about the importance of flu vaccines every winter — but did you know that shingles and pneumonia vaccination can also help reduce disease burden? Older adults are particularly vulnerable to these conditions, but I’d argue there’s not enough public awareness yet around how to protect against them.

While lack of awareness around vaccines is one obstacle to health, lack of confidence in vaccines is another. Unfortunately, low vaccine confidence is a rising problem and this can put the health of older people at risk. With up to 650,000 deaths caused by seasonal influenza each year, boosting vaccine uptake is a top priority. Clearly, we all still have important work to do to support confidence in existing vaccines from childhood right through to older age.

Vaccination throughout our life-course offers a strategy to living a long, healthy life. And for society more broadly, it makes economic sense too. For example, the direct cost of pneumococcal pneumonia has been estimated at €2.5 billion annually in Western Europe alone. A pharma-economic assessment in Belgium found that vaccination of moderate-risk and high-risk adults aged 65–84 years with pneumococcal vaccine would be a cost-effective solution, through its reduction of cases of pneumococcal disease and pneumococcal-related deaths.

I love working in vaccines — it’s inspiring to be part of something which has such a significant impact on public health and people’s lives. However, there remains a lot of work ahead of us to build confidence in vaccination among older adults and to ensure this becomes as much of a priority for individuals and governments as childhood vaccination.

Janine Small is the Regional President of International Developed Markets — Vaccines, at Pfizer, one of the members of the Global Coalition on Aging.