Project outline

This project will investigate whether vaccination with Shingrix is associated with a reduced incidence of dementia in older adults. The proposed research is a prospective cohort study using routinely collected, pseudonymised primary care data from the Oxford–Royal College of General Practitioners Research and Surveillance Centre (RSC), one of Europe’s oldest sentinel networks. The RSC currently contains a contemporary pseudonymised data extract covering more than 19 million people, or approximately 32% of the UK population, and its data are held within the Oxford-RCGP Clinical Informatics Digital Hub (ORCHID) trusted research environment at the University of Oxford.

How does this research try to address the problem?

This research will investigate whether Shingrix vaccination is associated with the incidence of dementia by comparing rates of new dementia diagnoses according to vaccination status. It will compare people vaccinated with Shingrix with those who have not received the vaccine, as well as with people who have received pneumococcal vaccination, which has not been found to be associated with a reduced risk of dementia. The study will also examine whether receiving more than one vaccination, and the interval between doses, affects the relative incidence of dementia. In addition, researchers will carry out a separate analysis among immunocompromised individuals and investigate Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) as a secondary outcome.