Acute care utilization due to hospitalizations for pediatric lower respiratory tract infections in British Columbia, Canada

Table 7 Projections for lower respiratory tract infection hospitalizations with and without a public health intervention strategy

	Year(s)	Hospitalizations	All Children	Bed-days	All Children	Beds	All Children
		Infants		Infants		Infants
Actual	2008-10	1,083	2,294	3,501	7,160	9.6 (41)	19.6 (64)
Proj1	2020	1,254	2,409	4,071	7,553	11.2 (48)	20.7 (68)
Proj1	2030	1,239	2,652	4,022	8,316	11.0 (47)	22.8 (74)
Proj2	2020	1,094	2,102	3,552	6,590	9.7 (41)	18.1 (59)
	2030	1,081	2,314	3,509	7,256	9.6 (41)	19.9 (65)

Beds correspond to annual average calculated from bed-days; peak in beds shown in parenthesis.
Proj1=projections based solely on population growth.
Proj2=Proj1 adjusted for public health intervention strategy.
Population projections predicted a growth in lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) bed-days of 5.5% among all children <19 years of age and 16.3% among infants <1 year of age by 2020 and 16.2% among all children <19 years of age and 14.9% among infants <1 year of age by 2030. A public health prevention strategy that reduces LRTI hospitalizations by 12.5% may counteract the effects of population growth.

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