The research sought to understand the age patterns of disease which is important to consider in targeting interventions. It helps maximize cost-effective impacts e.g. in the new malaria chemoprevention and vaccine initiatives that target young children attending routine immunization services. The study explored the relationships between age and severity of malaria hospitalization versus malaria transmission intensity. The age patterns of malaria hospitalization in over 52,000 admissions to emergency care wards at 21 hospitals over 49 different site-time-specific periods in East Africa linked to predicted community-based malaria prevalence were analyzed. This series represents one of the largest, contemporary descriptions of the epidemiology of severe, hospitalized malaria in Africa.