Shingles cases appear to be climbing among younger and middle-aged adults, with millennial women emerging as a group that may face a particularly elevated risk of the painful viral infection.
The trend is challenging the long-held perception that shingles is primarily an illness of older adults. Recent research has found that shingles cases among people ages 30 to 49 more than doubled between 1998 and 2017 in the United States, while newer research suggests that certain health conditions may put adults in their 30s at risk comparable to that of some older people.
