RESEARCH ARTICLE Trends and Determinants of Oral Anti- Diabetic Initiation in Youth with Suspected Type 2 Diabetes

Objective To evaluate trends and identify predictors of treatment initiation of oral anti-diabetic drugs (OAD) in youth. Patients and Methods We identified a select population of children, ages 8–18 years, with at least 13 months of continuous health plan coverage within the years 2001–2012 in a large US commercial insurance claims database. New use of an OAD was defined as the first claim for an outpa-tient dispensing following a 12-month wash out period. Treatment incidence was estimated monthly over the study period, and stratified by age, gender, geographic region, and pro-vider specialty. Results The median size of the source population during the study period was 2.2 million children. A total of 13,824 initiators (mean monthly incidence of 4.6 (95 % CI = 3.6, 5.5) per 100,000 youths) were identified. Initiators were more likely to be females, age 15–18, from the south