Urgent air transfers for acute respiratory infections among children from Northern Canada, 2005–2014
BACKGROUND: The incidence of hospitalizations for acute respiratory infections (ARI) among young Indigenous children from Northern Canada is consistently high. ARIs requiring urgent air transfer can be life-threatening and costly. We aimed to describe their epidemiology, estimate age-specific incide...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:9333212 2023-05-15T17:48:01+02:00 Urgent air transfers for acute respiratory infections among children from Northern Canada, 2005–2014 Prendergast, Caitlin Robinson, Joan Caya, Chelsea Perez Trejo, Maria E. Guan, Iline Hébert-Murakami, Veronica Marianayagam, Justina Wong, Zing-Wae Walker, Celia Goldfarb, David M. Barrowman, Nick Jetty, Radha Embree, Joanne Papenburg, Jesse 2022-07-28 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9333212/ https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272154 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9333212/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272154 © 2022 Prendergast et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY PLoS One Research Article Text 2022 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272154 2022-07-31T03:35:23Z BACKGROUND: The incidence of hospitalizations for acute respiratory infections (ARI) among young Indigenous children from Northern Canada is consistently high. ARIs requiring urgent air transfer can be life-threatening and costly. We aimed to describe their epidemiology, estimate age-specific incidences, and explore factors associated with level of care required. METHODS: We undertook a retrospective cohort study of children <5 years old from Northern Canada transferred by urgent air transport for ARI from 2005 through 2014 to 5 pediatric tertiary care centers in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Montreal. Admissions were identified via ARI-related ICD-9/10 coding and forward sortation area. Descriptive statistics and univariable analyses were performed. RESULTS: Among 650 urgent air transfers, the majority were from Nunavut (n = 349, 53.7%) or Nunavik (n = 166, 25.5%), <6 months old (n = 372, 57.2%), and without underlying comorbidity (n = 458; 70.5%). Estimated annual tertiary care ARI admission rates in infants <1 year old from Nunavut (40.7/1000) and Nunavik (44.5/1000) were tenfold higher than in children aged 1 to 4 years. Bronchiolitis (n = 333, 51.2%) and pneumonia (n = 208, 32.0%) were the most common primary discharge diagnoses. Nearly half required critical care (n = 316, 48.6%); mechanical ventilation rates ranged from 7.2% to 55.9% across centres. The most common primary pathogen was respiratory syncytial virus (n = 196, 30.1%). Influenza A or B was identified in 35 cases (5.4%) and vaccine-preventable bacterial infections in 27 (4.1%) cases. INTERPRETATION: Urgent air transfers for ARI from Northern Canada are associated with high acuity. Variations in levels of care were seen across referral centers, age groups and pathogens. Text Nunavut Nunavik PubMed Central (PMC) Ari ENVELOPE(147.813,147.813,59.810,59.810) Aris ENVELOPE(-61.400,-61.400,-70.633,-70.633) Canada Nunavik Nunavut PLOS ONE 17 7 e0272154 |
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Research Article Prendergast, Caitlin Robinson, Joan Caya, Chelsea Perez Trejo, Maria E. Guan, Iline Hébert-Murakami, Veronica Marianayagam, Justina Wong, Zing-Wae Walker, Celia Goldfarb, David M. Barrowman, Nick Jetty, Radha Embree, Joanne Papenburg, Jesse Urgent air transfers for acute respiratory infections among children from Northern Canada, 2005–2014 |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
BACKGROUND: The incidence of hospitalizations for acute respiratory infections (ARI) among young Indigenous children from Northern Canada is consistently high. ARIs requiring urgent air transfer can be life-threatening and costly. We aimed to describe their epidemiology, estimate age-specific incidences, and explore factors associated with level of care required. METHODS: We undertook a retrospective cohort study of children <5 years old from Northern Canada transferred by urgent air transport for ARI from 2005 through 2014 to 5 pediatric tertiary care centers in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Montreal. Admissions were identified via ARI-related ICD-9/10 coding and forward sortation area. Descriptive statistics and univariable analyses were performed. RESULTS: Among 650 urgent air transfers, the majority were from Nunavut (n = 349, 53.7%) or Nunavik (n = 166, 25.5%), <6 months old (n = 372, 57.2%), and without underlying comorbidity (n = 458; 70.5%). Estimated annual tertiary care ARI admission rates in infants <1 year old from Nunavut (40.7/1000) and Nunavik (44.5/1000) were tenfold higher than in children aged 1 to 4 years. Bronchiolitis (n = 333, 51.2%) and pneumonia (n = 208, 32.0%) were the most common primary discharge diagnoses. Nearly half required critical care (n = 316, 48.6%); mechanical ventilation rates ranged from 7.2% to 55.9% across centres. The most common primary pathogen was respiratory syncytial virus (n = 196, 30.1%). Influenza A or B was identified in 35 cases (5.4%) and vaccine-preventable bacterial infections in 27 (4.1%) cases. INTERPRETATION: Urgent air transfers for ARI from Northern Canada are associated with high acuity. Variations in levels of care were seen across referral centers, age groups and pathogens. |
format |
Text |
author |
Prendergast, Caitlin Robinson, Joan Caya, Chelsea Perez Trejo, Maria E. Guan, Iline Hébert-Murakami, Veronica Marianayagam, Justina Wong, Zing-Wae Walker, Celia Goldfarb, David M. Barrowman, Nick Jetty, Radha Embree, Joanne Papenburg, Jesse |
author_facet |
Prendergast, Caitlin Robinson, Joan Caya, Chelsea Perez Trejo, Maria E. Guan, Iline Hébert-Murakami, Veronica Marianayagam, Justina Wong, Zing-Wae Walker, Celia Goldfarb, David M. Barrowman, Nick Jetty, Radha Embree, Joanne Papenburg, Jesse |
author_sort |
Prendergast, Caitlin |
title |
Urgent air transfers for acute respiratory infections among children from Northern Canada, 2005–2014 |
title_short |
Urgent air transfers for acute respiratory infections among children from Northern Canada, 2005–2014 |
title_full |
Urgent air transfers for acute respiratory infections among children from Northern Canada, 2005–2014 |
title_fullStr |
Urgent air transfers for acute respiratory infections among children from Northern Canada, 2005–2014 |
title_full_unstemmed |
Urgent air transfers for acute respiratory infections among children from Northern Canada, 2005–2014 |
title_sort |
urgent air transfers for acute respiratory infections among children from northern canada, 2005–2014 |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9333212/ https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272154 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(147.813,147.813,59.810,59.810) ENVELOPE(-61.400,-61.400,-70.633,-70.633) |
geographic |
Ari Aris Canada Nunavik Nunavut |
geographic_facet |
Ari Aris Canada Nunavik Nunavut |
genre |
Nunavut Nunavik |
genre_facet |
Nunavut Nunavik |
op_source |
PLoS One |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9333212/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272154 |
op_rights |
© 2022 Prendergast et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272154 |
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PLOS ONE |
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17 |
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7 |
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e0272154 |
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