RESEARCH ARTICLE Comorbidities as a driver u r

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleCommunity-acquired pneumonia (CAP) ranks among the top causes of death and hospitalization and it is a major driver of health care utilization and cost. Annu-ally, there are 2 to 3 million CAP cases in the US result-ing in half a million hospitalizations, 10 million physician visits, and 45,000 deaths [1]. A recent study of ciated with annual excess medical costs of $8.5 billion and a productivity loss of $2.1 billion [2]. While it is understood that pneumonia risks are elevated for certain groups including several common comorbidities such as asthma and COPD [3-7], the cost burden of pneumonia has not been explored within comorbidity subgroups. We estimate the total excess cost burden of CAP as the sum of medical costs and productivity losses (work ab-sence and short-term disability) in a large cohort of com-mercially insured working-age adults throughout th