Advancing age and chronic illness are risk factors for herpes zoster and associated post-herpetic neuralgia.
Approximately 99.5% of the U.S. population age 40 and older has serologic evidence of previous varicella infection. Thus, all older adults are at risk for zoster, although many cannot recall any previous history of chickenpox.
The CDC currently recommends that healthy adults age 50 and older get two doses of the recombinant herpes zoster vaccine, separated by 2–6 months, to prevent shingles and the complications from the disease.