Tdap vaccination tied to lower dementia risk in older adults

Tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis (Tdap) vaccination in older adults is associated with a 42 percent lower dementia risk, according to a study recently published in The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences.

Jeffrey F. Scherrer, Ph.D., from Saint Louis University, and colleagues assessed whether Tdap vaccination is associated with incident dementia. The analysis included a Veterans Health Affairs (VHA) cohort (96 percent male; 91.2 percent White) and a MarketScan medical claims cohort of older adults (65.4 percent female) free of dementia for two years before the index period (2011 or 2012), with follow-up through 2018.

The researchers found that after controlling for confounding variables, patients with Tdap vaccination had a significantly lower risk for dementia in both cohorts (VHA: hazard ratio, 0.58; MarketScan: hazard ratio, 0.58) compared with older adults without Tdap vaccination.

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