ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Health Economics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1575125
Health care resource use and costs associated with adult pneumococcal disease in the United States from 2017 to 2019, stratified by age and health risk: a retrospective cohort study
Provisionally accepted
- Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, United States
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Background: Adult pneumococcal disease (PD) represents a significant clinical and economic burden in the United States. Individuals with immunocompromising conditions and other chronic medical conditions, as well as those ≥65 years of age, have an increased risk of acute PD and its long-term complications. The aim of the current study was to describe the health care resource use and direct health care costs associated with invasive PD (IPD) and non-bacteremic pneumococcal pneumonia (NBPP) among adults in the United States, stratified by age group and health-based risk level.Methods: This was a retrospective study of administrative claims from the Merative™ MarketScan Commercial Database from 2017 to 2019. The study population comprised individuals ≥18 years of age with ≥1 episode of IPD (with hospitalization) or NBPP (with or without hospitalization) during the study period. The study outcomes were the PD-associated health care resource use (outpatient visits and length of any hospitalizations, in days) and direct health care costs per episode.The average health care resource use and direct costs associated with PD were significantly higher for IPD (mean [95% CI] overall cost $49,481 [$45,803-53,159] per episode; N=949 affected individuals) than for NBPP with hospitalization ($27,330 [$23,807-30,852] per episode; N=389) and NBPP without hospitalization ($1,090 [$927-1,252] per episode; N=1,951). For IPD and for NBPP without hospitalization, the direct costs of treatment were significantly higher among groups with immunocompromising or other relevant comorbidities. The costs associated with NBPP without hospitalization were also significantly higher in the oldest age group (≥65 years).Conclusions: Targeting PD prevention efforts to high-risk groups based on age and/or health risk level could decrease the clinical and economic burden of adult PD in the US.
Keywords: Pneumococcal disease, Invasive pneumococcal disease, non-bacteremic pneumococcal pneumonia, United States, health care resource use, Health Economics
Received: 12 Feb 2025; Accepted: 14 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Cossrow, Bailey, Huang, Ai, Mohanty, McGuinn and Johnson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Nicole Cossrow, Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, United States
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