Do shingles vaccines help prevent dementia?

Scientists will examine whether getting a shingles vaccine lowers the risk of developing dementia. Scientific investigations in this area have shown that shingles vaccines might help prevent dementia, but those studies only used information from medical records. In this study, information from three different sources will be used: participants’ responses to the Kaiser Permanente (KP) Research Bank survey, genetic data from KP Research Bank participants’ blood samples, and information from participants’ KP electronic medical records. Using information from these three different sources will make the research findings more accurate. If the scientists find that the shingles vaccine may reduce peoples’ risk for dementia in the future, it may encourage more people to get the vaccine.