iStock/Thinksock(NEW YORK) — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s diagnosis with pneumonia brings national attention to a common but deadly infection and one of the most frequent causes of hospital visits in the United States.

Clinton’s doctor said the presidential hopeful had “became overheated and dehydrated” and that “she is now re-hydrated and recovering nicely,” adding that she was advised to rest and modify her schedule.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), pneumonia can  — in many cases — be treated with medication and prevented through vaccination.

For many Americans, getting pneumonia can lead to serious consequences, especially for young children and the elderly.

Globally, pneumonia kills nearly 1 million children younger than 5 years of age each year, but most people seriously affected by pneumonia in the United States are older adults.

More than 53,000 people in the U.S. died from pneumonia in 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, according to the CDC. People over the age of 65 accounted for more than 45,000 of those deaths.

For U.S. seniors, hospitalization for pneumonia has a greater risk of death compared to any of the other top 10 reasons for hospitalization, according to the American Thoracic Society, a physician’s organization that advocates for improving care for lung diseases.

Each year, hospitals in the U.S. admit more than 1.1 million people for pneumonia, making it one of the top causes of hospital stays nationwide. More people were admitted to hospitals for pneumonia in 2010 than for bone fractures, according to the CDC.

The overall death rate for pneumonia in the United States is 16.9 per 100,000 population, but that rate rises dramatically with age, to 27.9 for people from the ages of 65 to 74, 98.6 for people aged 75 to 84 and 414.7 for people 85 and over.

The CDC says that you can lower your risk for getting pneumonia by getting vaccinated and doing the following:

• Washing your hands regularly
• Cleaning surfaces that are touched a lot
• Coughing or sneezing into a tissue or into your elbow or sleeve
• Limiting contact with cigarette smoke
• Treating and preventing conditions like diabetes

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