Table 1.

Description of databases used in the study.

Database	Data type	Country	Years covered∗	Description
IQVIA Belgium Longitudinal Patient Database (LPD)	EHR	Belgium	2010–2017	(i) Data coverage of ∼2 million patients, 688 care sites, 15 million visits, and 140 million service records.
				(ii) Dates of service include 2008 to present.
IQVIA France Disease Analyzer (DA)	EHR	France	2012–2017	(i) Data collected from outpatient, general practitioner practices, and medical centers for all ages. Data coverage includes more than 10.9 million patients, 3,100 providers, 550 care, sites over 458.2 million medical events and services.
				(ii) Dates of service include from 1997 to present.
IQVIA Germany Disease Analyzer (DA)	EHR	Germany	2010–2017	(i) Data from physician practices and medical centers for all ages; mostly primary care physician data; however, some data from specialty practices (where practices are electronically connected to each other) and some laboratory data are included.
				(ii) Dates of service include from 1992 to present.
IQVIA Medical Research Database (IMRD)	EHR	UK	2010–2017	(i) Primary care data contributed from practices across the UK.
				(ii) Data coverage includes 15 million patients, 5 million providers, 793 care sites, and more than 5 billion service records.
				(iii) Dates of service include from 1989 to present.
CPRD-GOLD	EHR	UK	2010–2017	(i) Primary care data contributed from practices across the UK.
				(ii) Data coverage includes over 11.3 million patients from 674 practices with 4.4 million active (alive, currently registered) patients meeting quality criteria.
				(iii) Dates of service include from 1987 to present.
IQVIA Open Claims (LRxDx)	Claims	US	2011–2017	(i) Claims at the anonymized patient level collected from office-based physicians and specialists via office management software and clearinghouse switch sources for the purpose of reimbursement. A subset of medical claims data have adjudicated claims.
				(ii) Covers the total US population (unadjudicated claims from multiple data sources)
				(iii) Covers claims from 2010 to present.
IQVIA Pharmetrics Plus (PMTX+)	Claims	US	2010–2017	(i) Closed claims database of fully adjudicated pharmacy, hospital, and medical claims at the anonymized patient level sourced from commercial payers.
				(ii) Covers claims from 2006 to present.
Marketscan CCAE	Claims	US	2010–2017	(i) Insurance claims information for privately employer-insured individuals.
				(ii) Generally includes data from active employees, Comprehensive Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) continues, early (nonmedicare) retirees, and dependents who are younger than 65 years of age.
				(iii) In 2016, the database held 43.6 million person-years of data.
Marketscan MDCR				(i) Claims data on medicare-eligible active and retired employees and their medicare-eligible dependents from employer-sponsored supplemental plans (predominantly fee-for-service plans) aged 65 years or over. Only plans where both the medicare-paid amounts and the employer-paid amounts were available and evident on the claims were selected for this database.
				(ii) As of 19 October 2018, MDCR contained 9.89 million patients.
				(iii) Patient-level observations from January 2002 through December 2016.

^∗ At the time the study was carried out. CCAE: Commercial Claims and Encounters; CPRD: Clinical Practice Research Datalink; DA: Disease Analyzer; EHR: electronic health records; IMRD: IQVIA Medical Research Data UK; LPD: Longitudinal Patient Database; LRxDx: Longitudinal Prescription Diagnosis database; MDCR: Medicare Supplemental and Coordination of Benefits; PMTX: Pharmetrics; SD: standard deviation.