Abstract
BackgroundH7N9 continues to cause human infections and remains a pandemic concern. Understanding the economic impacts of this novel disease is important for making decisions on health resource allocation, including infectious disease prevention and control investment. However, there are limited data on such impacts.MethodsHospitalized laboratory-confirmed H7N9 patients or their families in Jiangsu Province of China were interviewed. Patients’ direct medical costs of hospitalization were derived from their hospital bills. A generalized linear model was employed to estimate the mean direct medical costs of patients with different characteristics.ResultsThe mean direct cost of hospitalization for H7N9 was estimated to be ¥ 71 060 (95 % CI, 48 180–104 820), i.e., US$ 10 996 (95 % CI, 7 455–16 220), and was ¥12 060 (US$ 1 861), ¥136 120 (US$ 21 001) and ¥218 610 (US$ 33 728) for those who had mild or severe symptoms or who died, respectively. The principal components of the total fees differed among patients with different disease severity, although medication fees were always the largest contributors. Disease severity, proportion of reimbursement and family member monthly average income were identified as the key factors that contributed to a patient’s direct medical cost of hospitalization.ConclusionsThe direct medical costs of hospitalized patients with H7N9 are significant, and far surpass the annual per capita income of Jiangsu Province, China. The influencing factors identified should be taken into account when developing related health insurance policies and making health resource allocation.Trial registrationNot applicable. This is a survey study with no health care intervention implemented on human participants.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40249-016-0170-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
H7N9 continues to cause human infections and remains a pandemic concern
According to the Diagnosis and Treatment Guideline for Human Infections with H7N9 released by the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China (Year 2014), cases with one of the following criteria were defined as having severe infection: a
Up to 31 July 2014, a total of 52 laboratory-confirmed H7N9 patients were admitted to hospitals and were reported in Jiangsu Province
Summary
Subjects This research was conducted in Jiangsu Province from August to September 2014. Northern or Southern district based on their street address to study the potential influence of a district’s economic level on medical cost of disease. Both the Per Capita GDP and Per Capita Annual Income are higher in the southern district compared with the northern district of Jiangsu Province, China. A generalized linear model (Gamma with log link) was employed to analyze the association between selected variables and patients’ direct medical costs. Both main effects and interactions of selected variables were analyzed. The selected best model was used to estimate the grand mean of direct medical costs of hospitalized patients infected with H7N9 avian influenza, and that of patients with different characteristics
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