University of Louisville School of Medicine Researcher Describes Advances in Antibiotics (Recurrent Antibiotic Use in Kentucky Children With 6 Years of Continuous Medicaid Enrollment): Drugs and Therapies – Antibiotics

2022 AUG 30 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A new study on antibiotics is now available. According to news originating from Louisville, Kentucky, by NewsRx editors, the research stated, “Little is known about the distribution of antibiotic use in individual children over time.”

Financial supporters for this research include Kentucky Cabinet For Health And Family Services: Department For Medicaid Services; Norton Children’s Hospital, The University of Louisville: School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics; School of Public Health And Information Sciences; Duke University School of Medicine.

The news journalists obtained a quote from the research from University of Louisville School of Medicine: “The amoxicillin index is a recently proposed metric to assess first-line antibiotic prescribing to children. We constructed a cohort of continuously enrolled Medicaid children using enrollment claims from 2012 to 2017. Pharmacy claims were used to identify antibiotic prescription data. Among 169 724 children with 6 years of Medicaid enrollment, 10 804 (6.4%) had no antibiotic prescription claims during the study period; 43 473 (25.6%) had 1-3 antibiotics; 34 318 (20.2%) had 4-6 antibiotics; 30 994 (18.3%) had 7-10; 35 018 (20.6%) had 11-20; and 15 117 (8.9%) children had more than 20 antibiotic prescriptions. Overall, the population had a median total of 6 antibiotic prescriptions during the study period, but use was higher in certain patient groups: younger age (8 antibiotic fills over the 6-year period, [IQR 4-14]), White children (7 [IQR 3-13], compared to 3 [IQR 1-6] in Black children), rural settings (9 [IQR 4-15]) and chronic conditions (8 [IQR 4-15]). Higher-use groups also had lower rates of amoxicillin fills, reported as amoxicillin indices.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Antibiotic use is common among most children insured by Kentucky Medicaid. A number of fills over time were higher in younger children, and in White children, children living in rural settings and children with chronic conditions. Patients with higher recurrent antibiotic use are important targets for designing high-impact antibiotic stewardship efforts.”

For more information on this research see: Recurrent Antibiotic Use in Kentucky Children With 6 Years of Continuous Medicaid Enrollment. Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, 2022. The publisher for Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society is Oxford University Press (OUP).

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1093/jpids/piac079.

Our news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Bethany A Wattles, Department of Pediatrics, University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. Additional authors for this research include Michael J Smith, Yana Feygin, Kahir S Jawad, Sagnik Bhadury, Jingchao Sun, Maiying Kong, Charles R Woods.

ORCID is an identifier for authors and includes bibliographic information. The following is ORCID information for the author of this research: Bethany A Wattles (http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4114-8824).

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