ISSN: 2161-1165

Epidemiology: Open Access
Open Access

Our Group organises 3000+ Global Conferenceseries Events every year across USA, Europe & Asia with support from 1000 more scientific Societies and Publishes 700+ Open Access Journals which contains over 50000 eminent personalities, reputed scientists as editorial board members.

Open Access Journals gaining more Readers and Citations
700 Journals and 15,000,000 Readers Each Journal is getting 25,000+ Readers

This Readership is 10 times more when compared to other Subscription Journals (Source: Google Analytics)
  • Review Article   
  • Epidemiology (Sunnyvale) 2016, Vol 6(1): 219
  • DOI: 10.4172/2161-1165.1000219

The Unprecedented Growth in Medical Admissions in the UK: The Ageing Population or a Possible Infectious/Immune Aetiology?

Rodney P Jones*
Statistical Advisor, Healthcare Analysis & Forecasting, , Camberley, UK
*Corresponding Author : Rodney P Jones, Statistical Advisor, Healthcare Analysis & Forecasting, Camberley, UK, Tel: 07890 640399, Email: hcaf_rod@yahoo.co.uk

Received Date: Jan 14, 2016 / Accepted Date: Jan 19, 2016 / Published Date: Jan 26, 2016

Abstract

Past and recent trends in medical and other admissions in England are examined to determine if the increasing elderly population is the sole source for pressures in the NHS arising from large increases in medical admissions. Unusual step-like events appear to lie behind the unexplained growth in medical admissions. Age banded trends since 2012/13 show evidence for age-specific patterns of growth which are similar to patterns in immunity arising from antigenic original sin, i.e. repeated priming of the immune system and consequent antibody landscapes arising from lifetime exposure to different strains of the same agent. Contrary to common belief, age-standardised growth in medical group (general and elderly medicine, etc.) admissions is highest in the younger age bands, except for children. As opposed to the medical group, age standardised growth in the oncology (oncology, radiotherapy) group occurs to the greatest extent in the youngest and oldest. Periods of unexplained higher deaths which accompany these events have been overlooked by traditional disease surveillance methods, and hidden patterns in deaths can be revealed by the use of cumulative sum of deviations from the mean (CUSUM), and running 12 month total analysis. Interactions between a suspected infectious agent and influenza appear likely. Changes in the gender ratio at birth around the time of the 1918 ‘Spanish flu’ epidemic suggest the potential involvement of a second agent. The pattern of conditions most affected shows some evidence for common immune function aetiology, and the immune modifying virus cytomegalovirus may be in some way involved in these events either as cause or via opportunistic reactivation.

Keywords: Disease surveillance; Age-standardized growth; Demography; Cytomegalovirus; Influenza; Gender ratio at birth

Citation: Jones RP (2016) The Unprecedented Growth in Medical Admissions in the UK: The Ageing Population or a Possible Infectious/Immune Aetiology?. Epidemiology (sunnyvale) 6:219. Doi: 10.4172/2161-1165.1000219

Copyright: © 2016 Jones RP. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Review summary

  1. Marigold Hargrave
    Posted on Oct 03 2016 at 5:40 pm
    This is a very interesting concept that has been introduced. The conclusion seems to be a highly speculative (but dramatic). Further statistical studies are imperative before inferring the occurrence of immune aetiological factors as the cause for the growth in the number of medical admissions.
Top