Race and Ethnicity are Determining Flu Vaccine Rates In Medicare

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- National Minority Quality Forum (NMQF) is calling for new legislative, fiscal, and educational strategies to address substantial racial and ethnic disparities in seasonal influenza vaccine (SIV) uptake among Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 years or older based on study findings published in The Lancet, "Effect of race and ethnicity on influenza vaccine uptake among older US Medicare beneficiaries: a record-linkage cohort study".

The study found people from racial and ethnic minority groups were significantly less likely than white people to receive SIV. These findings are alarming because they point to a level of disparity in vaccine uptake that can hamper efforts to reduce the health and economic burdens of influenza, which remain substantial despite decades of intense public health efforts.

"Annual administration of a SIV is recommended for people at high risk of serious illness and death due to influenza, including all adults aged 65 years or older, who account for most influenza-related deaths and hospital admissions," said Professor Salaheddin M Mahmud, the lead author of the study. "However, SIV uptake among this age group remains suboptimal, levelling off at approximately 65% since 1998. And, it's worse for racial and ethnic minority groups."

"By limiting the analysis to people who were vaccinated," writes Mahmud et al., "we were able to rule out several often-cited justifications for inequities in vaccine uptake, such as higher amounts of vaccine hesitancy and distrust of public institutions among minority groups, living circumstances (e.g., homelessness), or limited physical access to preventive services. Another important finding was that these disparities in uptake could not be fully explained by ethnic differences in age, gender, place of residence, Medicare status, pre-existing chronic diseases, intensity of health-care use, or region."

The authors concluded, "Our findings point to structural deficits systematically hampering access to influenza vaccination … driven by deeply ingrained and often subtle systemic prejudices and discriminatory policies and practices."

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About National Minority Quality Forum

The National Minority Quality Forum (NMQF) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit research and advocacy organization based in Washington, DC. The mission of NMQF is to reduce patient risk by assuring optimal care for all. NMQF's vision is an American health services research, delivery and financing system whose operating principle is to reduce patient risk for amenable morbidity and mortality while improving quality of life. NMQF's capabilities include federal and state policy analysis and advocacy; issue-specific alliance development; community-based provider quality improvement initiatives, and data analytics.

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SOURCE National Minority Quality Forum