OBJECTIVES: Pneumococcal vaccine uptake targets set by Healthy People 2020 were not met by 2019 among vulnerable United States populations. Research suggests progress can be made in primary care settings. This study assessed factors associated with having gotten a pneumococcal vaccine among vulnerable adults aged 50 and older.

METHODS: This study used the 2018 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey nationally representative dataset. Eligible individuals were aged 50 to 64 with an ‘at risk’ health condition or ≥65 years and had a primary care provider as their usual source of care (N=3,760). Binary logistic regression was used to test factors (identified from literature) for a significant association with getting the pneumococcal vaccine. Factors with significant associations were entered into an adjusted multivariable logistic regression model to generate the odds of endorsing a factor given that the respondent got the vaccine. Collinearity among variables was examined with an unacceptable threshold of ≥ 0.8 correlation. A significance threshold of 0.05 was used.

RESULTS: Those who got the pneumococcal vaccine were 16.66 (p<0.0001), 15.95 (p<0.0001) and 11.04 times (p<0.0001) as likely to have also gotten the influenza vaccine, the herpes zoster vaccine and a colonoscopy respectively. They were 3.86 times (p=0.0091) as likely to have diabetes mellitus, 0.04 times (p=0.0191) as likely to have visited their doctors three times in 2018 and 8.39 times (p=0.0094) as likely to have seen their doctor within the last year. Concordance statistic for model fit was 0.936.

CONCLUSIONS: The largest association for getting the pneumococcal vaccine was found among those endorsing having gotten the influenza or herpes zoster vaccine.