The effect of herpes zoster vaccines on incident dementia in England: Protocol for an OpenSAFELY regression discontinuity study
- 1University of Bristol
Abstract
The English national shingles vaccination programme was officially launched on 1 September 2013 using the live attenuated herpes zoster vaccine Zostavax and updated on 1 September 2023 to replace Zostavax with the two-dose, non-live, recombinant subunit herpes zoster vaccine Shingrix. A study using a regression discontinuity design, conducted following the introduction of the herpes zoster vaccination programme on 1 September 2013 in Wales and using the SAIL databank to analyse Welsh routinely collected data, suggested that Zostavax vaccination reduced the probability of a new dementia diagnosis by approximately 20% over a seven-year follow-up period. The effects of Zostavax and Shingrix on incident dementia in England have not been published to date. This protocol describes a regression discontinuity study to study the effect of herpes zoster vaccines on incident dementia in England using linked electronic health records from OpenSAFELY.
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BibTeX
@misc{walker2026effect,
title = {{The effect of herpes zoster vaccines on incident dementia in England: Protocol for an OpenSAFELY regression discontinuity study}},
author = {V. Walker and A. L. Schaffer and W. J. Hulme and C. Wood and A. Tamborska and A. J. Walker and B. MacKenna and B. Goldacre and J. A. C. Sterne and P. A. C. Geldsetzer},
howpublished = {medRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.03.26362052},
url = {https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.03.26362052v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - The effect of herpes zoster vaccines on incident dementia in England: Protocol for an OpenSAFELY regression discontinuity study
AU - V. Walker
AU - A. L. Schaffer
AU - W. J. Hulme
AU - C. Wood
AU - A. Tamborska
AU - A. J. Walker
AU - B. MacKenna
AU - B. Goldacre
AU - J. A. C. Sterne
AU - P. A. C. Geldsetzer
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/03
PB - medRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.03.26362052
UR - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.03.26362052v1
AB - The English national shingles vaccination programme was officially launched on 1 September 2013 using the live attenuated herpes zoster vaccine Zostavax and updated on 1 September 2023 to replace Zostavax with the two-dose, non-live, recombinant subunit herpes zoster vaccine Shingrix. A study using a regression discontinuity design, conducted following the introduction of the herpes zoster vaccination programme on 1 September 2013 in Wales and using the SAIL databank to analyse Welsh routinely collected data, suggested that Zostavax vaccination reduced the probability of a new dementia diagnosis by approximately 20% over a seven-year follow-up period. The effects of Zostavax and Shingrix on incident dementia in England have not been published to date. This protocol describes a regression discontinuity study to study the effect of herpes zoster vaccines on incident dementia in England using linked electronic health records from OpenSAFELY.
ER -