OBJECTIVES Yearly, people all around the country get flu shots to help prevent the flu virus, but still a large number of Americans are diagnosed with the flu each year. What we will examine in this study are the demographics of pediatric patients infected with this virus so that we can find some of the contributing factors requiring inpatient treatment for the flu. METHODS We use data from the 2005 National Inpatient Sample provided by the Healthcare Cost & Utilization Project. We will look at age, race and gender as well as the amount of time pediatric patients spend in the hospital and the total charges incurred while hospitalized. Also, we will look at the diagnoses and procedures performed while in the hospital. We have 2578 patients with the flu and 2600 patients not diagnosed with the flu. Statistical methods were performed using the statistical software, SAS, including frequency counts, pie and bar graphs, kernel density and logistic and linear regressions. RESULTS We will see that for the large percentage of people going into the hospital for the flu, most are only there for 3 days (85%); they are Caucasian (55%), incur $16,500 (average) in charges while hospitalized, are between 0 and 3 years old (51%), male (55%), and have a low risk factor of death according to the Charlson index. The study will yield a better understanding of the demographics and length of stay of flu patients. CONCLUSIONS What we also see is that patients with certain previous diagnosed diseases and procedures performed have a higher total cost and longer length of stay. The main diagnosis was lung disease and patients with this disease had significantly higher total charges as did patients with an endotracheal tube, spinal tap, or packed cells procedure performed.