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Children born in October are more likely to be vaccinated against influenza and less likely to be diagnosed with influenza than children born in other months, according to a US study published in the BMJ.
According to the findings, month of birth is associated with both the timing of flu vaccination and the likelihood of a flu diagnosis, and consistent with current guidelines, October is the best time for young children to get a flu shot.
The annual influenza vaccine is especially important for young children, who are more likely to get the flu and develop serious conditions that require hospitalization. Vaccination in September or October is recommended to boost immunity during peak flu season.
Also read: Flu season is here; Important tips to prevent influenza in children
In young children in the United States, preventive care visits occur during the birth months and are a convenient time to receive influenza vaccine, but large-scale studies of the optimal timing of vaccination are not available.
To address this, researchers decided to assess the optimal timing of influenza vaccination in young children.
Using health insurance claims data, they identified more than 800,000 children aged 2–5 years who received influenza vaccination between August 1 and January 31 during 2011–18. They then analyzed the rates of influenza diagnosis in these children based on month of birth.
After taking into account a range of potentially influential factors such as age, gender, existing conditions, health care access and family size, the results showed that October was the most common month for children to be vaccinated.
Children born in October also had the lowest rates of influenza diagnoses. For example, among children born in August, the average rate of influenza diagnosis across the flu seasons studied was 3%, compared with 2.7% for children born in October and 2.9% for children born in December.
This is an observational study and the authors acknowledge that their findings are limited to insured children receiving medical care. Nor can they rule out the possibility that other unobserved factors may have influenced their results.
Nevertheless, the results were similar after additional analysis to evaluate whether the association between birth month and influenza risk was due to chance, giving more confidence in their findings.
“Our findings suggest that a US public health intervention focused on vaccinating young children in October may provide the best protection in a typical flu season,” he said.
“The study’s findings are consistent with current recommendations promoting October vaccination,” he said.
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