This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
One in three adults with heart disease skips flu vaccine
Some polling data suggest need for more awareness, vaccinations.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
The results of a new Harris poll showed that 37% of adults with heart disease did not receive vaccination against influenza, despite the health risk implications.
The results also showed that only 53% of respondents received an influenza vaccination in 2006. The survey of 2,199 adults, 876 of whom had heart disease, confirmed earlier data collected by the CDC, which showed that one in three adults with heart disease did not receive an influenza vaccination in 2005.
|
|
The preventive vaccination can be particularly important in older patients, who often have more comorbidities and higher mortality rates than younger patients. According to the findings of a 2006 report from the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, influenza killed approximately 36,000 people between 1990 and 1999. Approximately 90% of these were adults aged 65 and older.
“It is startling to learn that only one in three adults with heart disease is taking a simple precaution to help prevent influenza,” Clyde W. Yancy, MD, professor of medicine and cardiology at the Baylor Heart and Vascular Institute, said in a press release. “For those people older than 65 years of age living with heart disease, influenza vaccinations can reduce hospitalization length, medical costs and work absenteeism, making [vaccination] a simple and cost-saving treatment option.”
Educational initiative
In response to the high numbers of patients with heart disease neglecting influenza vaccinations, a heart disease support group called Mended Hearts is partnering with hospitals and care centers nationwide to launch an educational initiative called “I Heart Flu Shots.” The goal of the initiative is to increase awareness of the benefits of influenza vaccinations and also to increase the number of people receiving annual influenza vaccinations to CDC–recommended levels.
“Heart disease is something we have to think about on a daily basis, so I do not want to be concerned about getting influenza as well,” Donnette Smith, treasurer of Mended Hearts Inc., Dallas, said in a press release. “The influenza vaccination is a simple and important preventive step that we as heart patients may not think about in terms of our heart health when actually, the influenza vaccination enables us to once again take our heart health into our own hands.”
The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology have both made recommendations that patients with heart disease receive annual influenza vaccinations. The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has also issued similar recommendations, seeing influenza vaccinations as a part of a patient’s overall complete care. - by Eric Raible
Patients with heart disease and particularly CHD are at high risk if they develop influenza. In the absence of some barring contraindication, they are among the most desirable patients to receive an influenza vaccination. It can be lifesaving in some of these patients because if they develop influenza, they are at a higher risk for death. It seems like a no-brainer.
— Elliot Rapaport, MD
For more information:
- To learn more about Mended Hearts, visit www.mendedhearts.org.