TY - JOUR T1 - Influence of age, sex and respiratory viruses on the rates of emergency department visits and hospitalizations with respiratory tract infections, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease JF - ERJ Open Research JO - erjor DO - 10.1183/23120541.00053-2021 SP - 00053-2021 AU - Imran Satia AU - Adil Adatia AU - Ruth P. Cusack AU - Justina M. Greene AU - Paul M. O'Byrne AU - Kieran J. Killian AU - Neil Johnston Y1 - 2021/01/01 UR - http://openres.ersjournals.com/content/early/2021/03/18/23120541.00053-2021.abstract N2 - Background The importance of age, sex and respiratory virus prevalence to Emergency Department (ED) visits and hospitalisations for respiratory tract infections (RTIs), asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in a whole population over time is not well established.Methods This study retrospectively analysed data for the daily ED visits and hospitalisations from 2003–2013 in Ontario, Canada and the daily number of virus positive tests. Daily numbers of ED visits and hospitalizations with RTIs, asthma, and COPD listed as a primary diagnosis were collected from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Virus data were obtained from the Respiratory Virus Detection Surveillance System. Multiple linear regression was used to assess the association of individual viruses with the daily rates.Results There were 4 365 578 ED visits and 321 719 admissions for RTIs (7.4%), 817 141 ED visits and 260 665 admissions for COPD (31.9%), and 649 666 ED visits and 68 626 (10.6%) admissions for asthma. Respiratory syncytial virus and influenza A were associated with male ED visits, whereas human rhinovirus was associated with female ED visits for RTIs in preschool children; 19.2% of males, but only 7.2% of females were admitted. The correlation between the prevalence of each virus and ED visits and hospitalisations for asthma was weak irrespective of age group and sex. Influenza A was most strongly associated with COPD ED visits and hospitalizations in males and females.Conclusions There are significant age and sex differences in the contribution of respiratory viruses to the number of ED visits and hospitalizations for RTIs, asthma, and COPD.FootnotesThis manuscript has recently been accepted for publication in the ERJ Open Research. It is published here in its accepted form prior to copyediting and typesetting by our production team. After these production processes are complete and the authors have approved the resulting proofs, the article will move to the latest issue of the ERJOR online. Please open or download the PDF to view this article.Conflict of interest: Dr. Satia reports personal fees from Educational Talks for GPs; GSK, Astrazeneca, grants and personal fees from Merck Canada, grant from ERS Respire 3 Marie Curie Fellowship, grant from E..J. Moran Campbell Early Career Award, Department of Medicine, McMaster University, outside the submitted work; .Dr. Satia reports personal fees from Educational Talks for GPs; GSK, Astrazeneca, grants and personal fees from Merck Canada, grants from ERS Respire 3 Marie Curie Fellowship, outside the submitted work.Conflict of interest: A. Adatia reports a fellowship award from the Canadian Institute for Health Research/Canadian Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology Foundation/AstraZeneca/AllerGen Emerging Researcher Award in Allergic Asthma outside the submitted work.Dr. Adatia reports grants from Canadian Institute for Health Research/Canadian Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology Foundation/AstraZeneca/AllerGen Emerging Researcher Award in Allergic Asthma, outside the submitted work.Conflict of interest: Dr. Cusack has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Justina Greene has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. O'Byrne reports grants and personal fees from AstraZeneca, personal fees from GSK, grants from Novartis, grants and personal fees from Medimmune, personal fees from Chiesi, outside the submitted work.Conflict of interest: Dr. Killian has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Johnston has nothing to disclose. ER -