Costs of vitamin D testing and prescribing among children in primary care

Vitamin D has attracted considerable interest in recent years, with a marked increase in diagnosis of vitamin D deficiency seen among children in clinical practice in the UK. The economic implications of this change in diagnostic behaviour have not been explored. We performed a cohort study to examine longitudinal trends in healthcare expenditure arising from vitamin D testing and prescribing for children in primary care in England, using the electronic healthcare records of 722,525 children aged 0-17 years held in The Health Improvement Network database. Combined costs of vitamin D tests and prescriptions increased from A 1647 pound per 100,000 person-years in 2008 (95% CI, A 934 pound to A 3007) pound to A 28,913 pound per 100,000 person-years in 2014 (95% CI, A 26,361 pound to A 31,739) pound. The total cost of vitamin D prescriptions and tests for children in primary care at the national level in England in 2014 was estimated to be A 4.31 pound million (95% CI, A 2.96-A pound 6.48 pound million). Conclusion: There has been a marked increase in healthcare expenditure on vitamin D tests and prescriptions for children in primary care over the past decade. Future research should explore the drivers for this change in diagnostic behaviour and the reasons prompting investigation of vitamin D status in clinical practice.