Measuring prevalence and incidence of chronic conditions in claims and electronic health record databases.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Health care databases are natural sources for estimating prevalence and incidence of chronic conditions, but substantial variation in estimates limits their interpretability and utility. We evaluated the effects of design choices when estimating prevalence and incidence in claims and electronic health record databases.

Methods

Prevalence and incidence for five chronic diseases at increasing levels of expected frequencies, from cystic fibrosis to COPD, were estimated in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) and MarketScan databases from 2011 to 2014. Estimates were compared using different definitions of lookback time and contributed person-time.

Results

Variation in lookback time substantially affected estimates. In 2014, for CPRD, use of an all-ti

SUBMITTER: Rassen JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6301730 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature