Effects of influenza vaccination on the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and all-cause mortality

BACKGROUND: Influenza vaccination is a simple strategy recommended for the prevention of influenza infection and its complications. This meta-analysis aimed to provide current supportive evidence for the breadth and validity of the observed protective effects of influenza vaccination on cardiovascular and respiratory adverse outcomes and all-cause mortality in older adults and in general adult population. METHODS: We searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library to identify all published studies comparing influenza vaccination with placebo from the database inception to November 11, 2018. These included studies reporting the associations of influenza vaccination with the risk of aforementioned adverse outcomes. RESULTS: The pooled adjusted relative risks among influenza-vaccinated people relative to unvaccinated people for the outcomes of interest were 0.74 (95 % confidence interval [CI] = 0.70−0.78) for cardiovascular diseases (63 studies), 0.82 (95 % CI = 0.75−0.91) for respiratory diseases (29 studies), and 0.57 (95 % CI = 0.51−0.63) for all-cause mortality (43 studies). We performed subgroup analysis of age, sex, and region/country and found that these protective effects were evident in the general adult population and particularly robust in older adults and in those with pre-existing specific diseases. CONCLUSION: Influenza vaccine is associated with a significant risk reduction of cardiovascular and respiratory adverse outcomes as well as all-cause mortality. Such a preventative measure can benefit the general population as well as those in old age and with pre-existing specific diseases.