Effectiveness of vaccines to prevent antibiotic prescribing for acute respiratory tract infections in high risk adults

In high income countries the greatest use of antibiotics is in community (primary care) settings in the context of acute respiratory tract infections.

Within these settings, both the very young, the very old and those with respiratory conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are known to be the greatest antibiotic users.

While there are a number of vaccines routinely provided that protect against acute respiratory tract infections, there is limited empirical data quantifying the potential benefit of vaccines to reduce antibiotic use for respiratory tract infections, particularly in adult populations.

In this project we will use a large-scale database of electronic general practice records to quantify, in older adults, the effectiveness of influenza, pertussis and pneumococcal vaccines in reducing primary care presentations for acute respiratory tract infections and subsequent antibiotic prescribing.

We will focus on high risk groups defined by age and/or co-morbidity (asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).

We will use these estimates of vaccine effectiveness to model the absolute reductions in antibiotic use that could be obtained by increasing vaccine coverage in different adult sub-groups. This evidence will enable policymakers to better prioritise strategies to increase uptake of these vaccines.