Estimating the burden of adult hospital admissions due to RSV and other respiratory pathogens in England.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a common seasonal respiratory virus and an important cause of illness among infants, but the burden of RSV disease is not well described among the older population. The objective of this study was to estimate the age-specific incidence of hospital admission among over 65 s due to respiratory illnesses attributable to RSV in England to inform optimal vaccine and therapeutic interventions. We used linear multiple regression to examine the effect of changes in weekly counts of respiratory pathogens on the weekly counts of respiratory hospital admissions.

Investigation of the impact of the NICE guidelines regarding antibiotic prophylaxis during invasive dental procedures on the incidence of infective endocarditis in England: an electronic health records study.

Background: Infective endocarditis is an uncommon but serious infection, where evidence for giving antibiotic prophylaxis before invasive dental procedures is inconclusive. In England, antibiotic prophylaxis was offered routinely to patients at risk of infective endocarditis until March 2008, when new guidelines aimed at reducing unnecessary antibiotic use were issued. We investigated whether changes in infective endocarditis incidence could be detected using electronic health records, assessing the impact of inclusion criteria/statistical model choice on inferences about the timing/type of any change.

Epidemiology and Outcomes of Nontyphoidal Bacteremias from England, 2004 to 2015.

Nontyphoidal (NTS) bacteremia causes hospitalization and high morbidity and mortality. We linked Gastrointestinal Bacteria Reference Unit (GBRU) data to the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data set to study the trends and outcomes of NTS bacteremias in England between 2004 and 2015. All confirmed NTS isolates from blood from England submitted to GBRU between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2015 were deterministically linked to HES records.

Exploring the Epidemiology of Hospital-Acquired Bloodstream Infections in Children in England (January 2009-March 2010) by Linkage of National Hospital Admissions and Microbiological Databases.

Background: Hospital-acquired bloodstream infection (HA-BSI) requires immediate effective antibiotic treatment. However, there are no published national data for England that describe the pathogen profile and antibiotic resistance rates of HA-BSI in children.

Methods: Probabilistic matching methods were used to link national data on microbiologically confirmed BSI to hospital in-patient admissions data for the period of January 2009-March 2010.