Who Needs a Flu Shot?

There are many signs that tell us the fall has arrived: cooler temperatures, leaves changing color, and campaigns for getting a flu shot. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the flu shot is your best defense against developing influenza. However certain populations are at higher risk for contracting the flu than others. As a senior student nurse and certified nurse aide, I recognize and recommend the following groups as top candidates for a flu shot.

The over 65 crowd

If you are over the age of 65, you are a top candidate for a flu shot. As we age, our bodies undergo changes that make us less able to fight infections. Our T-cells, which help us respond to allergies and infections, don't work as well as we get older. And elderly people living in nursing homes and long term care facilities are at an even greater risk because close living quarters make outbreaks spread quickly.

Children

Children should get a flu shot for the same reasons as the elderly and nursing home residents. To begin with, children's immune systems do not have enough antibodies to fight diseases as well as adults until at least age 7. The other issue with children is being in school and in close proximity with other students. Child play together, eat together, share desks and pencils with each other. So it only takes one child who has the flu to quickly spread it to his classmates.

The chronically ill

People with chronic illnesses are top candidates for a flu shot. If you have asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), developing the flu could further interfere with your breathing. If you suffer from HIV/AIDS, your immune system is highly weakened so an illness like influenza can cause serious complications. Diabetics (either type 1 or type 2) are not only more prone to infections, but getting the flu could actually raise their blood sugar levels putting them at risk for hyperglycemia. And people with cancer as well as cancer survivors are at risk for developing complications if they get the flu.

Health care workers

As health care workers, we are taught early on about infection control. That's why you see us washing our hands so diligently at work before and after we attend to our patients. But hand washing can only go so far with preventing the flu. We are exposed to so many patients every day, that if we do contract the flu, we have the potential to transmit it to many other patients whose bodies are already weakened by illness. If your employer offers you a free flu shot (and they usually do), take 'em up on it.

Sources:

Professional experience

Centers For Disease Control, Seasonal Influenza, October 2011

Kozier, Barabra; Erb, Glenora; Berman, Audrey; Snyder, Shirlee J (2008) Kozier and Erb's Fundamentals of Nursing (8th ed), Prentice Hall New Jersey, p 413

Ball, Jane and Binder, Ruth (2008), Pediatric Nursing: Caring for Children (4^thed), Prentice Hall, New Jersey, p 547-548