The Adult Vaccine Schedule, Without Reading the CDC PDF
The CDC adult vaccine schedule is updated annually, runs to about 30 pages of dense tables, and is genuinely useful — if you're a clinician trained to read it. For everyone else, the question is simpler: what's due for me right now, given my age and what I've already had?
Here's the practical version.
Annual: flu and COVID
- Flu shot: every adult 6 months and older, every year. Best time is October–November before the season ramps. The vaccine is reformulated each year for the strains expected to circulate.
- COVID-19: current ACIP guidance is an annual updated dose for everyone 6 months and older. The seasonal updated formulation drops in late summer / early fall, intentionally lined up with flu shots so you can do both in one visit.
Every 10 years: Tdap / Td
Tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis. Adults need a booster every 10 years. The first booster as an adult should be Tdap (which includes the pertussis component), not plain Td — pertussis (whooping cough) immunity wanes in adults, and circulating pertussis is a hazard particularly to infants who haven't completed their primary series. After the first Tdap, subsequent 10-year boosters can be either Tdap or Td.
If you cut yourself badly and can't remember when your last tetanus was, the ER will give you one. But the proactive 10-year cadence saves the cut-and-recall scramble.
One-time / occasional series
These are vaccines you complete once and then are done with (or done until much later in life).
MMR (measles, mumps, rubella): adults born after 1956 without documentation of immunity should have at least one dose. Some categories — healthcare workers, college students, international travelers — need two. Pre-1956 birth confers presumed immunity from natural infection. If you've never had MMR or had only one dose, especially as a woman of childbearing age, getting current is worth it. Measles is back in circulation in pockets and the disease is significantly worse than the vaccine.
Varicella (chickenpox): 2-dose series for adults without evidence of immunity (no documented vaccination, no documented chickenpox illness, no positive titer). Critical for healthcare workers and people of childbearing potential. Adult chickenpox is much worse than childhood.
HPV (human papillomavirus): routinely recommended through age 26 if not previously vaccinated. Ages 27–45 falls under "shared clinical decision making" — discuss with your provider. Benefit decreases with age (because exposure to common HPV types becomes likely) but is non-zero, and prevents the majority of cervical, anal, and oropharyngeal cancers.
Hepatitis B: 3-dose series for ALL adults 19–59. This was a universal recommendation as of 2022 — previously it was risk-based. If you got vaccinated in the late 90s / early 2000s as part of the universal infant program, you're set. If not, especially adults aged 30–59 who missed it, the series is worth completing. Adults 60+ vaccinate based on risk factors.
Age 50+: shingles
Shingrix (recombinant zoster vaccine), 2 doses 2–6 months apart, for all adults 50+. About 97% effective at preventing shingles in the 50–69 group, ~91% in 70+. Recommended even if you previously had the older Zostavax (which is no longer available in the US) and even if you've already had shingles itself. Shingles is genuinely awful, and post-herpetic neuralgia (the lasting nerve pain) can persist for months or years. Shingrix is the rare vaccine where the post-shot reaction (fatigue, achiness for a day or two) is part of the deal — that's the immune system working, and it's worth it.
Age 65+: pneumococcal
PCV15 followed a year later by PPSV23, OR PCV20 alone — the two current ACIP-approved approaches. Talk to your provider about which fits. Pneumococcal disease causes pneumonia, meningitis, and bloodstream infections; vaccination meaningfully reduces severe disease in older adults.
Age 60+ (especially 75+): RSV
ACIP added RSV to the routine schedule in 2024. Adults 75+ should have a single dose. Adults 60–74 fall under "shared clinical decision making" — discuss with your provider, especially if you have lung or heart conditions or live in a long-term care facility. RSV causes serious lower-respiratory illness in older adults and the vaccines substantially reduce hospitalization risk.
What's not on this list
Travel vaccines (yellow fever, typhoid, Japanese encephalitis), occupational vaccines (hepatitis A for healthcare workers, anthrax for military, rabies for veterinarians), and modifications for immunocompromised states (chemotherapy, transplant, HIV) or pregnancy specifics aren't covered here. Those need provider-specific conversations because the recommendations diverge sharply from the routine schedule.
Why all this matters
Vaccine-preventable disease in adults is a slowly growing problem. Pertussis is up, measles is sporadically back in unvaccinated pockets, shingles affects roughly a third of US adults in their lifetime, pneumonia hospitalises hundreds of thousands of older adults annually. The schedule isn't designed to inconvenience you — it's the result of decades of epidemiological data on what's worth catching when.
Skip the PDF
The Adult Vaccine Schedule tool asks for your age, sex assigned at birth, and what you've already had — then surfaces what's due now, due soon, or up to date in plain language. Same on-device privacy as the rest of /health — your history saves to localStorage so the page remembers.
The short version
Annually: flu + COVID. Every 10 years: Tdap. One-time series for adults who missed them: MMR, varicella, HPV (≤45), hepatitis B (19–59). At 50+: Shingrix. At 65+: pneumococcal. At 75+: RSV. Talk to your provider about anything that's been delayed — the catch-up schedules are designed for exactly this.