Vaccines & Infectious Diseases

Research overview

Vaccines save lives by protecting people against infectious diseases—polio, influenza, and viral hepatitis to name a few. But recently, particularly in the Northwest, people have delayed or refused vaccination because of safety fears, leading to local outbreaks of potentially deadly diseases such as whooping cough and measles. Kaiser Permanente Washington is working to protect communities by continually improving the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.

Kaiser Permanente Washington research projects on vaccines and infectious diseases include:

• clinical trials of promising vaccines and infectious disease treatments by the Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit led by Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) Senior Investigator and Washington Permanente Medical Group physician Lisa A. Jackson, MD, MPH, and funded through 2021 by the National Institutes of Health;
• ongoing monitoring of influenza vaccine effectiveness by the U.S. Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Network, led by Michael L. Jackson, PhD, MPH, KPWHRI associate investigator, and funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and
• studies of immunization safety through the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) Project, supported by the CDC and connecting information in large databases maintained by eight American health plans including Kaiser Permanente Washington.

Successes over three decades of KPWHRI research on vaccine safety and effectiveness include:

• a large study of flu vaccination in seniors that found that the vaccine might not protect them from pneumonia as well as hoped;
• a “real-time” evaluation of the safety of the new shingles vaccine in older adults across the VSD network;
• clinical trials of investigational flu vaccines, including ones against pandemic flu and bird flu, in adults;
• the biggest retrospective study of pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine effectiveness in adults and the largest clinical trial on the safety of this vaccine; and
• the pivotal clinical trials of 7-valent, 13-valent, and 20-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccines in older adults.

Affiliate researchers

Doug Opel, MD, MPH
University of Washington (UW) Department of Bioethics and Humanities; UW Department of Pediatrics; UW Medical Center

Adjunct researchers

John Dunn, MD, MPH
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Washington

Elizabeth Lin, MD, MPH
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Washington Family Practice;
Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute