Most Americans over the age of 50 are willing to get vaccinated against dementia, and about 70% have a positive attitude

The latest research finds that most Americans over the age of 50 have a positive attitude towards vaccines to prevent dementia, and about 70% express willingness to get vaccinated. Schematic diagram. (European News Agency)

[Financial Channel/Comprehensive Report] If there is a vaccine that can reduce the risk of dementia in the future, will you be willing to take it? The latest research found that most Americans over the age of 50 have a positive attitude towards vaccines to prevent dementia, with about 70% saying they are willing to get vaccinated, and only about 7% explicitly saying they are unwilling.

The authoritative American magazine "Newsweek" reported that this study published in "JAMA Network Open" was conducted by experts from the Center for Health Policy and Economics Research at the Schaeffer Center of the University of Southern California, and a total of 1,529 American adults over the age of 50 participated. Researchers asked respondents whether they would be willing to take a vaccine that was cheap, required multiple doses, and could reduce the risk of dementia by 50% for people at high risk of dementia.

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The results of the survey, published on September 21, showed that 72.1% of the respondents said they were probably, very likely, or definitely would receive this kind of preventive dementia vaccine; 20.8% said they were "uncertain" or neutral, and 7.2% said they might or definitely would not receive it.

Study leader J. Felipe Montano-Campos said the results suggest that people's attitudes toward dementia vaccines may differ from attitudes toward other vaccines and therefore merit separate study. What worries him most is that "uncertainty may be more important than opposition," because the proportion of people who express uncertainty about whether to receive a dementia vaccine is higher than those who clearly express their unwillingness to receive it.

The gender difference in the results is quite obvious. The survey showed that 23% of women were hesitant to receive the dementia vaccine, compared with 18.5% of men; while 29.1% of women and 38.5% of men said they would "definitely" get vaccinated. In addition, among the respondents in their 50s, 31.1% said they would "definitely" get vaccinated; the figure for those over 70 years old increased to 35.1%. After further adjusting for demographic and socioeconomic factors, the study found that people aged 60 to 69 and those over 70 years old were more willing to be vaccinated than those aged 50 to 59.

The study also found that people with higher incomes, higher education levels, and those who themselves or someone close to them have suffered from dementia have a higher willingness to be vaccinated. Researchers said that if an effective preventive dementia vaccine does come out in the future, understanding the differences in attitudes among different groups will help with vaccine promotion and related communication.

However, the study also reminded that this survey asked respondents whether they would be willing to receive a "hypothetical vaccine" and was not an actual medical decision-making when faced with a vaccine that is already on the market. Therefore, the results may not fully reflect the actual vaccination situation in the future.

The report pointed out that some existing vaccines have been found to be associated with a lower risk of dementia in multiple studies, which has further sparked interest and research into whether vaccines can help prevent or delay dementia.

These include the shingles vaccine. Stanford University researchers analyzed the health records of adults in Wales and found that those who received the shingles vaccine were 20% less likely to develop dementia within the next seven years than those who were not vaccinated. According to a 2025 study conducted by experts from many Italian universities and Canadian universities, other adult vaccines, including vaccines to prevent shingles, influenza, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Tdap, are also associated with a lower risk of dementia.

However, because preventing dementia is not the original purpose of these vaccines, "it is still unclear whether there is a causal relationship between the two and what biological mechanisms may be responsible for this association," said Jonathan Lovell, a professor of biomedical engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

A lot of research has been devoted to vaccines specifically for dementia. Although several strategies have entered clinical trials, none have yet been approved. Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia and is characterized by the accumulation of tangled amyloid beta plaques and tau proteins in the brain, both of which are proteins. Lovell said that most current dementia vaccine development strategies try to "stimulate the patient's own immune system to produce antibodies" to fight these proteins.

David Morgan, director of the Alzheimer's Alliance and professor of translational neuroscience at Michigan State University, said he believes a vaccine targeting amyloid beta could prevent Alzheimer's disease if the vaccine could be administered early enough, but that dementia could still occur for other reasons.

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