SAFE researcher Markus Eyting has been published in the current issue of the prestigious journal Nature with:“A natural experiment on the effect of herpes zoster vaccination on dementia.“ Together with his co-lead-author Min Xie (Heidelberg University), as well as co-authors Felix Michalik (Stanford University), Simon Heß (Vienna University of Economics and Business), Seung Chung (Stanford University) and Pascal Geldsetzer (Stanford University), Eyting’s work reveals that receiving the herpes zoster (shingles) vaccine is associated with a 20 percent reduction in new dementia diagnoses over a seven-year period, with an even more pronounced protective effect observed in women.
Interdisciplinary insights
In the study, Eyting leverages his econometric expertise to bring fresh insights into clinical research. Economists frequently exploit thresholds or cut-offs to test for causal effects using regression discontinuity (RD) designs—a method that remains underutilized in clinical studies. "Our approach demonstrates how tools from economics can help establish causal relationships rather than mere correlations,” Eyting says. “This opens new avenues to evaluate public health interventions and enriches both fields with innovative analytical frameworks.”
Markus Eyting is a Postdoctoral Researcher at SAFE and at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. His research focuses on experimental methods as well as survey and administrative data to study the interplay of beliefs and individual decision-making with applications to health, discrimination, and machine learning.
Study overview and key findings
The study capitalizes on a natural experiment stemming from Wales’ unique vaccination rollout. When the live-attenuated shingles vaccine was introduced with eligibility strictly determined by age thresholds, researchers could compare individuals just above and below the cut-off. This strategy allowed for isolating the vaccine’s direct impact, showing that those who received the vaccine were significantly less likely to develop dementia in the following seven years. These results not only bolster the emerging theory that viral infections may increase dementia risk but also suggest that preventive measures might be closer than previously thought.
Read the article here.
