Too many older Australians are missing out on recommended vaccinations for COVID, flu, shingles and pneumococcal that can protect them from serious illness, hospitalisation and even death. A new Grattan Institute report shows vaccination rates vary widely from GP to GP, highlighting an important place to look for opportunities to boost vaccination. Many people get vaccinated at pharmacies, and those vaccinations are counted in our analysis.
But we looked at GPs because they have a unique role overseeing someone’s health care, and an important role promoting vaccination. We found that for some GPs, nine in ten of their older patients were vaccinated for flu. For others, the rate was only four in ten.
The differences for shingles and COVID were even bigger. For pneumococcal disease, there was a 13-fold difference in GPs’ patient vaccination rates. While some variation is inevitable, these differences are large, and they result in too many people missing out on recommended vaccines.
A lot of these differences reflect the fact that GPs see different types of patients. Our research shows older people who aren’t proficient in English are up to 15% less likely to be vaccinated, even after other factors are taken into account. And the problem seems to be getting worse.
COVID vaccination rates for people 75 years and older fell to just 36% in May 2024. But rates were even lower – a mere 11% – for people who don’t speak English proficiently, and 15% for those who speak a la.
