Promoting vaccination amongst the elderly with VITAL’s new tools

The VITAL project recently published two tools to boost the uptake of vaccinations amongst the elderly – one resource for healthcare professionals and another for policymakers.

As we get older, our immune system becomes less effective, meaning that we become more susceptible to infectious diseases. At the same time, vaccine uptake in the elderly population is not as high as it should be.

Healthcare professionals are often one-on-one with elderly patients, and can have an influence on the decisions that people make regarding vaccination.

Evidence-based conversations about vaccination can help to boost vaccine uptake, so VITAL put together an educational platform for healthcare professionals that can help to improve communication about vaccination.

The platform offers educational resources in five languages – English, Italian, Dutch, French and Hungarian – and is integrated with academic programmes so that the next generation of healthcare professionals can also benefit from it.

“A better understanding of vaccination is crucial to its acceptance by the aging population,” says project coordinator Debbie van Baarle. “As a healthcare professional, having insights into what influences older adults in deciding whether or not they accept vaccination is fundamental.”

The project also dove into how the economic impact of the current methods for managing infectious diseases in ageing adults could best be measured and reported on. Based on their findings, VITAL developed a toolkit to help decision-makers to figure out how best to organise national vaccination programmes.