TABLE 1.

Characteristics of study population, 2013–2017

	No. of children with ≥1 dispensings	Child‐years	Dispensings	Dispensings per child‐year
Total	840,190	4,026,231	8,219,722	2.0
Age, years
<1	129,793	232,557	374,206	1.6
1–5	353,683	1,166,277	2,573,065	2.2
6–11	332,607	1,340,014	2,398,899	1.8
12–17	323,085	1,281,384	2,904,068	2.3
Sex
Female	413,959	1,959,701	3,860,992	2.0
Male	425,949	2,066,530	4,357,246	2.1
Remoteness area a
Major cities	598,497	2,730,618 b	5,862,531	2.1
Inner regional	149,849	829,088	1,499,295	1.8
Outer regional	71,676	400,334	688,300	1.7
Remote or very remote	13,985	97,775	108,420	1.1

Sex missing for n = 282; remoteness missing for n = 6183.

^a Remoteness area for each child's first dispensing.

^b Person‐years for remoteness area are approximate and may not add up to the total.