Work led by scientists from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome and Stanford University and published in Jama Health Forum shows that vaccines have prevented the loss of 14.8 million years of life

About The Study: This comparative effectiveness study found that COVID-19 vaccinations averted 2.5 million deaths during 2020-2024 (sensitivity range estimates, 1.4-4.0 million). Estimates in this study are substantially more conservative than previous calculations focusing mostly on the first year of vaccination, but they still clearly demonstrate a major overall benefit from COVID-19 vaccination during the years 2020-2024. Most benefits in lives and life-years saved was secured for a portion of older persons, a minority of the global population.

About The Study: The results of this qualitative analysis using systems modeling suggest that National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget reductions may have far-reaching implications for scientific progress, the biomedical innovation environment, and health care costs. Beyond immediate budgetary impacts, systemic interactions shaping long-term biomedical research and public health must be considered in funding policies.

Isaac Chua, MD, MPH, of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is the lead author of a paper published in JAMA Network Open, “Changes in Palliative Care Specialist Use among Medicare Decedents with Poor Prognosis Malignancies .”