Kaiser Permanente collaborated with CDC researchers to study the effectiveness of flu vaccinations in preventing influenza-associated hospitalizations during pregnancy.
A retrospective study of more than 2 million pregnancies in hospitals in Australia, Canada, Israel and the United States from 2010 to 2016 found that influenza vaccines reduced a pregnant woman’s risk of being hospitalized from flu by an average of 40 percent.
The study is the first to examine influenza vaccine effectiveness against influenza-associated hospitalizations during pregnancy. The data adds evidence to further strengthen the rationale for influenza vaccination programs for pregnant women.
“Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to the health risks from influenza, and this study shows that pregnant women who get the flu vaccine are more likely to stay out of the hospital for flu-related illnesses,” said study co-author Nicola Klein, MD, PhD, director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center.
The study, titled “Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness in Preventing Influenza-Associated Hospitalizations during Pregnancy: A Multi-Country Retrospective Test Negative Design Study, 2010-2016,” was published October 11 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Allison Naleway, PhD, a vaccine safety researcher at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Oregon, was the senior author of the study. Mark G. Thompson, PhD, epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was the lead author of the study.
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