Impact of influenza vaccination on major cause-specific mortality

The efficacy of influenza vaccination is not well understood for major cause-specific mortality except pneumonia. For 10 months we followed the mortality data of 35,637 vaccinated elderly (> 65 years old) in a county with 102,698 elderly in southern Taiwan. A multivariate Cox model showed that vaccination was significantly associated with lower mortality for all causes, [hazards ratio (HR) = 0.56], stroke (HR = 0.35), renal disease (HR = 0.40), diabetes mellitus (HR = 0.45), pneumonia (HR = 0.47), COPD (HR = 0.55), malignancy (HR = 0.74), and heart diseases (HR = 0.78), p < 0.05. Influenza vaccination was strongly associated with reducing major cause-specific mortality. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.