Impact of flu vaccines on hospital burden
From PNAS Science Sessions by PNAS
January 26, 2026 · 10 min
About this episode
Lauren Meyers discusses the impact of flu vaccines on hospital burden during the 2022-2023 influenza season.
How well flu vaccines protect public health Science Sessions are brief conversations with cutting-edge researchers, National Academy members, and policymakers as they discuss topics relevant to today's scientific community. Learn the behind-the-scenes story of work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), plus a broad range of scientific news about discoveries that affect the world around us. In this episode, Lauren Meyers explains what the 2022-2023 influenza season taught us about the effectiveness of flu vaccines. In this episode, we cover: •[00:00] Introduction •[01:16] Computational epidemiologist Lauren Meyers introduces the health and hospitalization burden of seasonal influenza. •[01:47] She defines vaccine effectiveness. •[02:37] Meyers describes the features of the 2022-2023 flu season. •[04:05] She describes how the researchers estimated the hospitalizations prevented by vaccination. •[05:11] Meyers tells how vaccination of young adults protected adults over 65 years of age. •[06:56] She describes the takeaways of the study for future flu seasons. •[08:08] Meyers lists the caveats and limitations of the study. •[09:49] Conclusion. About…
People in this episode
Host: PNAS
Guest: Lauren Meyers
Topics covered
- flu vaccines
- public health
- hospital burden
- influenza season
- vaccine effectiveness
Keywords
- flu vaccines
- hospitalization
- influenza
- vaccine effectiveness
- public health
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: University of Texas at Austin
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