A study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases examined the association between neighborhood socioeconomic status and hospitalization for infection and sepsis.
For the prospective cohort study, researchers used data from 30,239 participants in the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke study. They defined neighborhood socioeconomic status using a score derived from census data and classified into quartiles.
Researchers also identified infection-and sepsis-related hospitalizations between 2003 and 2012. They found 3,054 hospitalizations for serious infections over a 6.5-year median follow-up.
The study shows infection incidence was lower for participants in the highest neighborhood socioeconomic status quartile (11.7 per 1,000 person-years) as compared with the lowest quartile (15.6 per 1000 person-years).
However, the researchers did not find an association between neighborhood socioeconomic status and sepsis among those hospitalized with infection.