Out-of-hospital health care costs of childhood food allergy in Australia: A population-based longitudinal study

Abstract

Background: Australia has one of the highest prevalence of childhood food allergy in the world, but there are no data on its economic burden in Australia. Methods: We used data from the HealthNuts study, a population-based longitudinal study undertaken in Melbourne, Australia. Infants were recruited at age 12 months between Sept 2007 and Aug 2011 with food allergy diagnosed using oral food challenges. Health care costs of out-of-hospital services were collected through data linkage to Australia's universal health insurance scheme Medicare. Two-part model was used to compare costs after controlling for potential confounders. Results: 2919 children were included, and 390 (13.4%) had challenge-..