Let’s be clear. The primary reason to be vaccinated against shingles is that two shots provide
90 percent protection against a painful, blistering disease that a third of Americans will suffer in their lifetimes, one that can cause lingering nerve pain and other nasty long-term consequences.
The most important reason for older adults to be vaccinated against the respiratory infection R.S.V. is that their
risk of being hospitalized with it declines by almost 70 percent in the year they get the shot, and by nearly 60 percent over two years.
And the main reason to roll up a sleeve for an annual flu shot is that when people do get infected, it also reliably reduces the severity of illness, though its effectiveness varies by how well scientists have predicted which strain of influenza shows up.
But other reasons for older people to be vaccinated are also emerging. They are known, in doctor-speak, as off-target benefits, meaning that the shots do good things beyond preventing the diseases they were designed to avert.
The list of off-target benefits is lengthening as “the research has accumulated and accelerated over the last 10 years,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Some of these protections have been established by years of data; others are the subjects of more recent research, and the payoff is not yet as clear. The R.S.V. vaccine, for example, became available only in 2023.
Still, the findings “are really very consistent,” said Dr. Stefania Maggi, a geriatrician and senior fellow at the Institute of Neuroscience at the National Research Council in Padua, Italy.
She is the lead author of
a recent meta-analysis, published in the British journal Age and Ageing, that found reduced risks of dementia after vaccination for an array of diseases. Given those “downstream effects,” she said, vaccines “are key tools to promote healthy aging and prevent physical and cognitive decline.”
Yet too many older adults, whose weakening immune systems and high rates of chronic illness put them at higher risk of infectious disease, have not taken advantage of vaccination.
The usual mantra from the ill-informed or the deliberately deceitful. “Is the earth really not flat? I’m not saying it IS flat, but I’m just asking questions.” 
What else is new?