While several studies have reported the episodic expenditures attributable to lower respiratory tract illness due to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV-LRTI) among US infants, published estimates vary widely. Moreover, it is unknown whether expenditures due to infant RSV-LRTI vary relative to the RSV season or COVID-19 pandemic. A new study using a US healthcare claims database (2015-2023) was thus undertaken to estimate infant episodic expenditures attributable to RSV-LRTI requiring hospitalization or ambulatory care only, overall as well as by age at infection and gestational age in weeks (wGA) at birth. Analyses were also conducted relative to the RSV season and COVID-19 pandemic. Mean expenditures were 23, 024 for hospitalized episodes, 2, 298 for emergency department (ED) episodes, and 410 for other ambulatory episodes. Across care settings, mean expenditures nominally decreased with increasing by age at infection and birth wGA. Mean expenditures - irrespective of care setting - across subgroup analyses defined on RSV season and COVID-19 pandemic were largely consistent with results from overall analyses. In conclusion, findings from this study indicate that expenditures attributable to infant RSV-LRTI remain high, especially in the hospital and ED settings.
Averin et al. (Mon,) studied this question.