Authors' response
- 1Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK
- 2Paediatric Infectious Diseases Unit, St George's Hospital NHS Trust, London, UK
- Correspondence to Dr Elizabeth Koshy, Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London, Charing Cross Campus, 3rd Floor, Reynolds Building, St Dunstan's Road, London W6 8RP, UK; e.koshy{at}ic.ac.uk
- Accepted 8 November 2010
- Published Online First 2 December 2010
Elemraid and colleagues raise important points about potential diagnostic misclassification and under-ascertainment using the Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) database, as well as the absence of national pneumococcal serotype data for children.
The HES database covers all NHS hospital activity in England and has been widely used to report disease trends. It also provides the opportunity to estimate the clinical impact of major clinical policies on disease burden but, as with any large epidemiological dataset, has inherent weaknesses at the individual level.
Our study aimed to focus on common community-acquired bacterial pneumonia trends …
