Vaccinations and preventive screening services for older adults: opportunities and challenges in the USA

Vaccinations and disease-screening services occupy an important position within the constellation of interventions designed to prevent, forestall or mitigate illness: they straddle the worlds of clinical medicine and public health. This paper focuses on a set of clinical preventive services that are recommended in the USA for adults aged 65 and older, based on their age and gender. These services include immunisations against influenza and pneumococcal disease, and screening for colorectal and breast cancers. We explore opportunities and challenges to enhance the delivery of these interventions, and describe some recently developed models for integrating prevention efforts based in clinician offices and in communities. We also report on a state-level surveillance measure that assesses whether older adults are 'up to date' on this subset of preventive services. To better protect the health of older Americans and change the projected trajectory of medical costs, expanded delivery of recommended vaccinations and disease screenings is likely to remain a focus for both US medicine and public health.