Don't wait... vaccinate! Here are recommended vaccines for adults

Vaccines play an important part in protecting individual health as well as the health of your family and community—whether you're six or sixteen or 60.

As an adult, it's equally important to keep up with certain vaccines, depending on your age, health status, lifestyle factors and travel, to minimize your own risk of infectious disease and also of spreading it to others.

Childhood vaccinations have prevented more than 100 million cases of serious disease.  – Centers for Disease Control (CDC)

What are the recommended vaccines for adults?

The one vaccine just about everyone older than six months should get every year is the flu shot. There are some exceptions, of course, for people with allergies, certain conditions, and religious exemptions.

Getting vaccinated against the flu year after year is the best defense we have individually and collectively against new strains of the flu virus. With every new strain of virus—which is highly contagious and contributes greatly to lost work as well as life opportunities—there is the potential for more serious complications, especially in some people who are more vulnerable. These include older adults and people who are immunocompromised.

Other recommended vaccines for adults may include:

• Shingles (herpes zoster)
• Pneumonia (pneumococcal disease)
• HPV
• Hepatitis B

Your doctor is the best person to advise you on which vaccines you need.

Getting vaccinated against COVID-19

Although vaccination does not completely prevent breakthrough cases of COVID from happening, it does slow down the spread of coronavirus and lowers the risk of people becoming seriously ill from the virus.

You should get vaccinated for COVID:

• For yourself – to minimize your own risk of becoming infecting and sick from coronavirus
• For your family – to help prevent spread of coronavirus to people you love and care about
• For your community – to decrease the risk and widespread contagion, in order to get the virus under control as a population

Find out if COVID vaccination is right for you.

COVID VACCINATION INFORMATION AND SCHEDULING

Your aging immune system (and why recommended vaccines for adults are more important than ever)

Regardless of how healthy you are and how robust your immune system might be, as you age your immune system is slower and less powerful in defending against disease. As you get older, your become more susceptible to contagious disease such as shingles—even if you had chicken pox as a child—and pneumonia. Pneumonia in older adults can cause severe respiratory illness, even death.

VACCINES SENIORS NEED

Just as you would talk with your health care provider about diet, exercise, blood pressure and cholesterol, be sure to find out which vaccines you need for your age and health condition.

Main Line Health serves patients at hospitals and health centers throughout the western suburbs of Philadelphia. To schedule an appointment with a Main Line Health provider, call 1.866.CALL.MLH (225.5654).