For the past 3 years what was the total number of pediatric
prescriptions written in the USA?  How does that compare to the total
number of prescriptions written in the USA?  By pediatric we mean
liquid prescriptions for children under the age of 13.  You must
provide a link to the reference.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 23 Aug 2006 13:53 PDT

I found information that shows that prescriptions for children and
teens account for 200 million prescriptions a year -- less than 10% of
the total of 3 billion prescriptions written each year in the US.

However, I do not see breakouts for individual years, nor have I found
specific data on liquid meds for the under-13 crowd.

Would the above data -- and citations for them -- provide an
acceptable answer to your question?

Let me know what you think.


pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by woodien-ga on 24 Aug 2006 07:18 PDT

It seems you are on the right track.  Perhaps we can backtrack by
finding the number of total scripts for the past 3 years and just
using that percent to calculate estimated pediatric scripts/year. 
Also if we can get some demographic data as to the percent of children
in the US that are under 18, then if it is broken down from 0 to 12
and 13 above we figure out how many of these were for children under
13.

woodien-ga,

Thanks for getting back to me.  I think I can get you awfully close to
the type of numbers you're looking for.


The actual number of prescriptions written in the US, and their
breakout by demographics or types of medicine -- are proprietary
statistics that are only available in expensive market-research
reports, like this report for almost $3,000:


http://www.cuttingedgeinfo.com/PharmaMarketResearch/


However, bits and pieces of information do become publicly available,
and I've put these together into an overview of the pediatric
prescriptions in the US.


According to information available through the FDA website, from a
2006 document, there are about 3 billion prescriptions written every
year in the US:



http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dockets/05n0374/05n-0374-EC6-Attach-1.pdf
National Association of Chain Drug Stores
...Our member pharmacies serve as the largest providers of outpatient
prescription medications in the nation, filling over 70
percent of the more than 3 billion outpatient prescriptions dispensed
annually in the United States.




Pfizer, Inc. has a site devoted to pediatric pharmaceutical practice,
which states that there are 200 million prescriptions written each
year for children and teens:


http://www.pfizercareerguides.com/default.asp?t=article&b=pharmacy&c=practiceAreas&a=PedPharm
Pfizer Inc
Pediatric Pharmacist

Did you know?
...More than 200 million prescriptions are written annually for
children and teenagers.



Hence, pediatric prescriptions account for:


200 million / 3 billion = 6.67% of all prescriptions.


There is ample information from the Census Bureau on the population of
children and teens in the US:


http://www.census.gov/popest/national/asrh/NC-EST2005-sa.html
Annual Estimates of the Population by Sex and Five-Year Age Groups for
the United States: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2005

Total Population	296,410,404

.Under 5 years	         20,303,724
.5 to 9 years	         19,538,793
.10 to 14 years	         20,857,743
.15 to 19 years	         21,038,989



Thus, there are about 81.6 million children 19 years or younger, or
about 27.6% of the total population of 296.4 million.

Similarly, there are 60.6 million children 14 years or younger, or
about 20.4% of the total US population.

Lastly, the 14-years or younger children account for 74.3% of all
children 19 or younger.  So as a rough first cut, the 14 and under
crowd account for about three fourths of all pediatric medicines.


I trust that's the information you're looking for, but if anything
else is needed, please let me know by posting a Request for
Clarification.

Cheers,

pafalafa-ga


search strategy -- Google searches on combinations of:

"million OR billion prescriptions"

pediatric

"million OR billion * prescriptions"

Good answer.  We had to use other means to get to what I was looking
for but it will do.