We sought to determine the impact of changes in breastfeeding rates on population health.
We used a Monte Carlo simulation model to estimate the population-level changes in disease burden associated with marginal changes in rates of any breastfeeding at each month from birth to 12 months of life, and in rates of exclusive breastfeeding from birth to 6 months of life. We used these marginal estimates to construct an interactive online calculator (available at www.usbreastfeeding.org/saving-calc ). The Institutional Review Board of the Cambridge Health Alliance exempted the study.
Using our interactive online calculator, we found that a 5% point increase in breastfeeding rates was associated with statistically significant differences in child infectious morbidity for the U.S. population, including otitis media (101,952 cases, 95% confidence interval [CI] 77,929-131,894 cases) and gastrointestinal infection (236,073 cases, 95% CI 190,643-290,278 cases). Associated medical cost differences were $31,784,763 (95% CI $24,295,235-$41,119,548) for otitis media and $12,588,848 ($10,166,203-$15,479,352) for gastrointestinal infection. The state-level impact of attaining Healthy People 2020 goals varied by population size and current breastfeeding rates.
Modest increases in breastfeeding rates substantially impact healthcare costs in the first year of life.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 34. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 15 September 2021.
All research outputs
#1,450,556
of 33,087,078 outputs
Outputs from Breastfeeding Medicine
#134
of 1,289 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#21,908
of 345,134 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Breastfeeding Medicine
#3
of 31 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 33,087,078 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,289 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 22.0. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 345,134 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 31 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.
