ORIGINAL ARTICLE: The Incidence of Herpes Zoster in a United States Administrative Database

BACKGROUND: Few recent studies have reported data on the incidence of herpes zoster (HZ) in U.S. general clinical practice. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the age- and sex-specific incidence of HZ among U.S. health plan enrollees. DESIGN: Data for the years 2000 to 2001 were obtained from the Medstat Market...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of general internal medicine : JGIM 2005-08, Vol.20 (8), p.748-753
Main Authors: Insinga, Ralph P, Itzler, Robbin F, Pellissier, James M, Saddier, Patricia, Nikas, Alexander A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clinical medicine
Confidence intervals
Employee benefits
Herpes viruses
Human immunodeficiency virus
Studies
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Summary:BACKGROUND: Few recent studies have reported data on the incidence of herpes zoster (HZ) in U.S. general clinical practice. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the age- and sex-specific incidence of HZ among U.S. health plan enrollees. DESIGN: Data for the years 2000 to 2001 were obtained from the Medstat MarketScan database, containing health insurance enrollment and claims data from over 4 million U.S. individuals. Incident HZ cases were identified through HZ diagnosis codes on health care claims. The burden of HZ among high-risk individuals with recent care for cancer, HIV, or transplantation was examined in sub-analyses. Overall incidence rates were age- and sex-adjusted to the 2000 U.S. population. PARTICIPANTS: MarketScan U.S. health plan enrollees of all ages. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We identified 9,152 incident cases of HZ (3.2 per 1,000 person-years) (95% confidence interval [CI], 3.1 to 3.2 per 1,000]. Annual HZ rates per 1,000 person-years were higher among females (3.8) than males (2.6) (P
ISSN:0884-8734
1525-1497
DOI:10.1111/j.1525-1497.2005.0150.x