10
Loading video...
By Jasmine Laws
Reporter
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
The vast majority of older Americans say they would be interested in having a vaccine that significantly reduces the risk of dementia, new research has found.
Experts at the University of Southern California Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics asked more than 1,500 Americans over the age of 50 if they would want to have a low-cost, multi-dose vaccine that could reduce the risk of developing dementia by half for those at high risk. The results were largely positive.
The study was published in the journal JAMA Network Open on September 21.
Read More on Health
The findings come as the Trump administration has been increasingly changing America's vaccine policies and vaccination rates nationwide have also been decreasing, which experts believe is being driven by growing anti-vaccine sentiment because of concerns about vaccine safety.
"When we asked specifically about a future dementia vaccine, willingness was relatively high and outright opposition was low," J. Felipe Montano-Campos, study lead and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southern California, told Newsweek. "This suggests that attitudes toward a dementia vaccine may be different from attitudes toward other vaccines and are worth studying on their own."
...
What The Study Found
The researchers found that 72 percent of Americans involved in the study said they would likely or definitely receive a vaccine that had the potential to reduce dementia risk by 50 percent. Meanwhile, 21 percent said they weren't sure and 7 percent said they likely or definitely would not.
They also found that intentions changed based on age, sex and race and ethnicity. Americans who were 70 and older were more likely to say they would have the vaccine—35 percent compared to 31 percent of those in their 50s.
Women also appeared to be more hesitant than men, with 23 percent saying they would not get a vaccine to reduce dementia risk compared to 19 percent of men, and only 29 percent of women said they would, while 39 percent of men said the same.
Black Americans also had the highest levels of hesitation among racial and ethnic groups at 26 percent and were also nearly half as likely as White Americans to say they would definitely get the vaccine (20 percent compared to 36 percent).
Montano-Campos said that what stood out to him was that "uncertainty may be more important than opposition," given the higher proportion of those who said they were unsure about receiving a dementia vaccine compared to those who expressed no willingness.
He also said the fact women were less willing than men to receive a future dementia vaccine was "particularly interesting given recent studies suggesting that the association between shingles vaccination and lower dementia risk may be stronger among women."
"These are the kinds of differences that will be important to understand if effective dementia vaccines become available in the future," he said.
Jonathan Lovell, a professor of biomedical engineering at the University at Buffalo, told Newsweek: "It is encouraging to see a high-quality survey showing that most respondents would be open to receiving a preventive dementia vaccine for Alzheimer's if they were at high risk, and the vaccine could reduce that risk."
"I am not entirely surprised by the finding, given how common and devastating Alzheimer’s disease is for patients and their families," he said.
...
Adult Vaccines Associated With Reduced Dementia Risk
A number of already existing vaccines have been associated with a reduced risk of developing dementia in various studies, prompting further intrigue and investigation around whether vaccines could help to prevent or delay the disease.
This includes the shingles vaccine, as researchers at Stanford University analyzed the health records of Welsh adults and discovered that those who received the shingles vaccine were 20 percent less likely to develop dementia over the next seven years than those who did not receive the vaccine.
Other adult vaccinations, including those that protect against herpes zoster, influenza, pneumococcus and Tdap, have also been associated with a lower risk of dementia, according to 2025 research by experts in universities across Italy and in Canada.
However, as dementia prevention is not the intended purpose of these vaccines, Lovell said "it is not yet clear whether the relationship is causal and what biological mechanisms may account for this."
How Could a Dementia Vaccine Work?
There has been considerable research into dementia-specific vaccines, and while several strategies have reached clinical-stage testing, none have yet been approved.
Chuanhai Cao, a research investigator at University of South Florida's Byrd Alzheimer’s Center and Research Institute, told Newsweek that to develop an effective vaccine for dementia, it must address "the age-related decline in immune function, and the specific pathological factors that cause the disease."
"Reactivating the immune system without triggering an excessive immune response is therefore a key consideration, to avoid adverse effects," he said, adding that the other essential factor is "targeting the aggregated protein form, oligomeric amyloid beta which is the most toxic species to neurons."
Alzheimer's disease—the most prevalent type of dementia—is characterized by the accumulation of amyloid beta plaques and tau tangles (both of which are proteins) within the brain, and Lovell said most strategies so far of developing a dementia vaccine have been designed to "stimulate the patient's own immune system to produce antibodies" against those proteins.
Cao said that scientists now know how to "reactivate the immune system more precisely, for example, by using dendritic cells loaded with oligomeric [amyloid beta] with a mutation to generate a controlled, targeted immune response capable of treating or preventing Alzheimer's disease."
"This is a very promising approach, and I am hopeful about it," he said.
Lovell said the challenge is "not only safely generating these antibodies, but demonstrating that the induced immune response addresses the underlying disease pathology and, ultimately, delays disease onset or slows or stops its progression."
How Effective Could A Dementia Vaccine Be?
David Morgan, director of the Alzheimer's Alliance and professor of translational neuroscience at Michigan State University, told Newsweek that if delivered early enough, he believed an amyloid beta-targeting vaccine could "prevent Alzheimer's disease, although dementia might still occur due to other causes."
He said that like cholesterol in your arteries, the amyloid beta protein builds up over more than 20 years before any symptoms emerge, and so the vaccine "would remove the build up as it emerges," preventing the protein from accumulating.
"We know the immune system can fight against amyloid build up, but with age its effectiveness declines," he said. "The vaccine boosts the immune system to once again succeed in blocking amyloid accumulation."
Reference
Montano-Campos JF, Joyce GF, Zissimopoulos JM. (2026) Public Attitudes About Preventive Dementia Vaccine Among US Adults. JAMA Network Open. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.34777
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Kara Dolman and Emma Lee-Sang
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines