A national health advocacy group is asking baby boomers and seniors to get two extra shots — one to prevent pneumonia and one to prevent shingles — when they head out to get their flu shots this winter.

“It’s a good time to raise awareness about vaccinations,” said Lindsay Clarke, the vice president of health programs for the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance for Aging Research. “Don’t forget to get (the pneumococcal and shingles) vaccinations, and don’t forget to tell your loved ones to get them as well,”

Earlier this month, Clarke’s group released a fact sheet stating that people who are 65 or older make up half of the country’s total influenza hospitalizations each year. It also found the flu was responsible for 45 percent of workdays that people between the ages of 50 and 64 miss each year and 49 percent of all workdays in which they experienced low productivity.

When it comes to the country’s oldest population group, the report found one out of every 20 Americans 85 or older will come down with a case of community-acquired pneumonia and that the death rate for this disease is 130 times higher for them than it is for those who are 45 to 54.

The report found half of Americans in this age group will get shingles — a form of chicken pox — and that half of them will develop shingles-related complications like post-herpetic neuralgia, an incurable burning nerve pain that can last for months after a person’s initial shingles infection has occurred.

Clarke said vaccines can soften the effects of all three of these infectious diseases if not prevent them altogether. According to the alliance’s fact sheet, the PPSV23 vaccine for pneumonia is 60 to 70 percent effective and the flu vaccine is 60 percent effective. The varicella-zoster shingles vaccine can reduce a person’s chance of catching the infection by 51.3 percent, reduce the chance of developing PHN by 61.1 percent and reduce the chance of dying from it by 33 percent.

“Older Americans are particularly under-vaccinated,” she said, citing research by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found only 62.3 percent of adults older than 65 got a pneumonia vaccines and 66.2 percent of adults in that age group got a flu shot that year.

Only 15.8 percent of adults older than 60 got vaccinated for shingles, she said, citing the CDC’s report. According to the CDC, adults should get a flu shot every year but only need to get their shingles or pneumonia vaccines once in their lifetimes unless they meet certain criteria that would suggest they get a booster shot.

Clarke said there are a number of reasons why older Americans may not be getting the vaccinations they need, including:

• Cost: Both the flu and pneumococcal vaccines are covered through Medicare Part B, which has a monthly premium of $104.90, but are only free if a person has first met their $147 deductible for the health insurance plan. The shingles vaccine can be purchased through Medicare Part D, Medicare’s prescription drug coverage, but must be administered at the beneficiary’s expense.

• Education — Many older adults incorrectly think the flu vaccines are not effective, and some even think the vaccines may give you the flu, Clarke said, which they cannot. She also said many older adults don’t know vaccines are available for pneumonia and shingles or that they are at risk of catching these infections if they are not vaccinated.

• Tracking: The final barrier to vaccination is that many older adults see more than one health care provider, and without a way to track what each doctor recommends — such as a clear stream of electronic health records — a person’s doctor may not recommend that someone get the proper vaccine or remind them when it’s time to get their shots again.

Clarke said the further development and utilization of electronic health records should help doctors and physicians counter the tracking issue because they will be able to keep track of whether an individual patient has received shots and when.

Her group is also calling for the creation of a national program like the CDC’s Vaccines for Children initiative — a 20-year-old program that provides low-income or uninsured children with vaccines for 16 different illnesses through public health clinics at little or no cost — that would be focused on making sure older adults get their vaccinations when they are needed.

Finally, Clarke said older adults should also think about getting a whooping cough vaccine.

Though the disease is not as common or as severe for older adults as it is for children and infants — and thus not a major priority for the Alliance on Aging Research — Clarke said whooping cough does affect infants, particularly those who are not old enough to be vaccinated against it, and recommends that anyone who is near young children and infants get the shot as well.

— Reporter: 541-617-7816, mmclean@bendbulletin.com