Type 2 diabetes affects millions of adults worldwide. Complications of diabetes, often involving multiple organ systems, increase the burden of illness in those affected and can result in repeated and prolonged hospital admissions. Accurately capturing an individual’s burden of illness has grown in importance as it reflects both illness severity and inpatient resource use. In an observational cohort study, Hongjiang Wu and colleagues analyze data from more than 1.5 million people in Hong Kong between 2002 and 2018 and compare age- and sex-specific rates of all-cause and cause-specific admissions to hospital in those with and without type 2 diabetes.

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