Estimate of disease prevalence using drug consumption data

Area of Science:

• Pharmacoeconomics
• Epidemiology
• Public Health

Background:

• Estimating chronic disease prevalence is crucial for public health planning.
• Traditional epidemiological methods can be costly and time-consuming.
• Continuous medication use in chronic diseases presents an opportunity for novel prevalence estimation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a simple, inexpensive method for estimating the prevalence of chronic diseases.
• To validate the method using real-world data for diabetes mellitus and intraocular hypertension.
• To compare the precision and cost-effectiveness against conventional prevalence studies.

Main Methods:

• The method utilizes total drug sales data and mean drug intake (defined, prescribed, or consumed daily doses).
• Prevalence estimation is most accurate when using consumed daily doses from patient samples.
• Data from Belgium in 1990 (diabetes mellitus) and 1992 (intraocular hypertension) were used for illustration.

Main Results:

• The proposed method provides a quick and inexpensive way to estimate disease prevalence.
• The precision of prevalence estimates using this method is comparable to traditional cross-sectional studies.
• The study demonstrated applicability for diabetes mellitus and intraocular hypertension.

Conclusions:

• This drug sales data method offers a viable alternative for chronic disease prevalence estimation.
• The approach is particularly useful for diseases requiring continuous drug treatment.
• It presents a cost-effective solution for epidemiological surveillance.