Measuring the Unintended health ServIce Consequences from COVID19
Investigators: Hannah Moore, Huong Le, Christopher Blyth
External collaborators: Ariel Mace, Andrew Martin
Plain language summary:
This project will quantify the immediate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the collateral damage (“lockdown”) caused on health service utilisation patterns at Perth Children’s Hospital (PCH). We hypothesise that the rates of common paediatric respiratory infections have dramatically reduced in 2020 compared to previous years. We must quantify this apparent reduction in health service utilisation and identify which health service indicators are the most sensitive to external events, to aid future interpretation of population-based age-specific temporal and seasonal trends in infectious diseases
Project description:
2020 has been a remarkable year with COVID-19 being declared a pandemic on 11 March. The first case in Australia was diagnosed on 25th January. Despite the number of COVID-19 cases in Australia being less than initially predicted, we have experienced widespread changes to our way of life with numerous flow-on effects. In the last 4 months, we have experienced border closures on numerous levels, physical and social distance restrictions, campaigns around increased hand hygiene measures and increased community knowledge of infectious diseases in general.
Whilst these activities have helped reduce the community transmission of COVID-19, there have been unexpected impacts on the epidemiology of other infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases, affecting health service utilisation. Australian data have shown a reduction in influenza-like-illness and influenza positive tests concurrent with the timing of restrictions. It is important to know if this reduction is across all age groups, especially for infants aged <12 months who have the highest burden of disease for influenza, RSV and PIV, and school aged children who, for at least influenza, are known to be the key spreaders of infection.
Understanding how COVID-19 disruptions have impacted on respiratory viral disease epidemiology is vital at the local level to evaluate current prevention programs (e.g. influenza vaccination) and provide the evidence of the need for future vaccination programs for currently non-vaccine preventable diseases (e.g. RSV, PIV). The impacts are also important at the national and international level as disease epidemiology drives the need for prevention programs to be developed and implemented. Additionally, a reduction in indicators of other paediatric respiratory infections concurrent with COVID-19 restrictions could be the driving force for greater community understanding of the importance of hand hygiene and distancing when symptomatic to reduce transmission of important respiratory viruses in children.
This research aims to quantify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting disruptions on health service utilisation in terms of
a) emergency department presentations
b) hospital admissions overall
c) hospital admissions for specific diagnoses
d) intensive care admissions and
e) respiratory viral testing,
by comparing aggregated numbers of these health service indicators in children aged <16 years attending Perth Children’s Hospital (PCH) in 2020 with the preceding five years. This will be an epidemiological retrospective study using electronic administrative health data.
Funding: This work is funded by the Wesfarmers Centre for Vaccines & Infectious Diseases.