This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Racial, age disparities exist in SSTI
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Racial and age differences among patients with skin- and soft-tissue infections are areas that need to be explored in future studies, according to a presentation at the 2011 Pediatric Academics Societies’ Annual Meeting.
Michelle A. Lopez, MD, works in the department of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, and presented the study findings.
Lopez and colleagues examined what factors were associated with hospitalizations for skin- and soft-tissue infections (SSTIs). They analyzed a cross section of patients from the 2006 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Kids’ Inpatient Database. They included in the study patients aged 2 months through 18 years who had an IDC-9 code consistent with SSTI and who also had a hospital stay for longer than 2 days. About 19,000 children met inclusion criteria.
Hispanic and Asian/other race children were most likely to have a longer length of hospital stay, and consequently incur greater costs, than white children.
The researchers noted that the western and Midwestern US regions showed the highest costs compared with the Northeast and the South (OR=2.22; CI, 1.44-3.43 and OR=4.38; CI, 2.93-6.54, respectively).
Lopez noted that privately insured children and those admitted to children’s hospitals had a shorter average length of stay in the hospital compared with those on Medicaid and those older children admitted to standard hospitals.
“Identifying the mechanisms for these disparities may lead to interventions to reduce the health care burden attributable to SSTI admissions,” Lopez and colleagues wrote.
Disclosures: Dr. Lopez reports no relevant financial disclosures.
For more information:
Follow InfectiousDiseaseNews.com on Twitter.
