A team led by researchers at AdventHealth Sebring in Florida reviewed data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and found that of the 216,311 CDI-related deaths reported in the U.S. from 1999 to 2023, white Americans accounted for 83.9%, Black Americans accounted for 8.1%, and Hispanics accounted for 5.5%.
Percentage of these groups in the total U.S. population in 2020 census data57.8% were white, 12.1% were black, and 18.7% were Hispanic or Latino.
The data also showed significant geographic differences in CDI deaths, with 83.8% occurring in and around metropolitan areas and 16.2% occurring in non-metropolitan areas. More than 70% of CDI deaths occurred in hospitalized patients, and 20% occurred in nursing homes, long-term acute care, and hospice patients.
This research has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
CDI causes inflammation of the colon and severe diarrhea and is responsible for an estimated 500,000 illnesses and 30,000 deaths in the United States each year.
Antibiotic use disrupts the balance of bacteria in the gut microbiome, it's difficult Bacterial growth is the main risk factor. According to the CDC, you are 7 to 10 times more likely to get CDI while taking antibiotics or in the month following.
At an IDWeek press conference, AdventHealth Sebring resident and study lead author Muhammad Asghar, MD, MBBS, MD, said the study results were surprising. This is because healthcare-associated infections usually have social determinants, and those who contract them and die from them tend to be a minority, have fewer resources, and less access to healthcare.
"but, C difference In fact, the opposite is true," Asghar said. "It's the white population. They have more resources, they have more access to health care, they're more likely to be exposed to antibiotics and all the other risk factors."
Other notable trends include that CDI-related deaths are higher among women than men (58.2% vs. 41.9%), with 33.0% of deaths occurring in the Southern census region, followed by the Midwest at 24.4%, the Northeast at 22.2%, and the West at 20.3%. Rhode Island has the highest crude death rate at 6.55 per 100,000 people.
Asghar and his colleagues also noted a significant increase in CDI-related deaths starting in 2006 and ending in 2015. In 1999, the death rate from CDI was just 0.5 per 100,000 patients, he said. However, in 2006, the number increased to 3.6 per 100,000 patients and remained at that level until 2015. Asghar said this trend coincides with the arrival of infectious diseases. highly virulent strain of it's difficult Increased resistance to standard CDI treatments. The trend was "particularly acute" among whites, he said.
The good news is that mortality rates from CDI have been declining since 2015. Asghar said the declines seen in all census regions can be partially attributed to better treatment options, such as fidaxomicin and fecal microbiota transplants. Fidaxomicin became the recommended first-line treatment for CDI in 2021. Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA).
Asghar also said that improved infectious disease prevention and control and antimicrobial stewardship programs aimed at reducing unnecessary antibiotic use are playing a key role.
"The results of this study highlight the importance of sustained prevention strategies to further reduce the burden of this infectious disease," he said.
IDWeek is a joint annual meeting of IDSA, the American Society for Healthcare Epidemiology, the HIV Medical Society, the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society, and the Society of Infectious Disease Pharmacists.