ABSTRACT
Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a lower respiratory tract infection. It is one of the commonest infectious diseases and the third leading cause of death worldwide. However, the epidemiological profiles of CAP in southeastern China are unknown. Data of inpatients and outpatients diagnosed with CAP from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2020 were obtained from the National Healthcare Big Data in Fuzhou (Fuzhou Database). This database covers medical data from 37 hospitals and 159 community health service stations. The incidence rate, treatment pattern, and direct medical costs of CAP were assessed using clinical data. A total of 8,156,237 patients were enrolled, with a mean age of 33.72 ± 20.88 years. The overall incidence rate of CAP was 3.13 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.11–3.15) per 1000 person-years (PY), with 15.97 (95% CI: 15.85–16.08) per 1000 PY in children below 5 years old and 2.62 (95% CI: 2.57–2.66) per 1000 PY in the elderly ≥60 years. The cost per outpatient was $242.83 ± 341.62, and the cost per inpatient was $4,530.4 ± 9,151.68. The three most used therapeutic drugs in patients with CAP are cefotaxime, moxifloxacin, and azithromycin. In addition, despite the ability of both imported and domestic pneumococcal conjugate vaccines to reduce the incidence rate of CAP, the current vaccination coverage rates were relatively low. We suggest that more attention should be paid to the disease burden of CAP, especially due to its great economic burden in China.
Acknowledgments
We thank Yang Feng, Yufeng Song, Chenguang Zhu, and Siyang Qu from Xiamen Chazen Biomedical Technology Company for their help with data analysis, text editing, and language editing.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.