Ethnicity, substance use, and response to booster hepatitis B vaccination in anti-HBs-seronegative adolescents who had received primary infantile vaccination

A booster dose of HB vaccine may be insufficient to induce immunological response in healthy adolescents who had undetectable prebooster anti-HBs titers or who were of Malay-Polynesian ethnicity. Responses to booster vaccination are probably modified by recent cigarette smoking and/or betel-quid chewing.