The abstract is read at the publisher; the summary is JClub's.
In six multinational cohorts (8.93 million people; 1.49 billion prescriptions), varicella-zoster virus vaccination is linked to lower all-cause mortality (HR 0.61, 95% CI 0.53–0.70) in All of Us.
- Why it matters: Observational mortality signals for specific drugs are hard to compare across health systems, and confounding can obscure which associations are credible enough to prioritize for repurposing.
- What they did: The study screened prescription–mortality associations using time-dependent Cox models across UK, US, Finland, Hong Kong, and Japan, then emulated a target trial in All of Us with matched unvaccinated and other vaccine comparator groups.
- The result: The VZV association persisted versus matched unvaccinated individuals and pneumococcal vaccine recipients, was attenuated versus tetanus-diphtheria vaccine recipients, and remained after some adjustments, suggesting healthy-user selection alone does not fully explain it.
The findingWhy it mattersWhat they didThe result
AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.