Hispanic dialysis patients have a 40% higher risk of developing a staph bloodstream infection than whites, according to new data released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, underscoring economic and racial disparities in the US health care system. Is.
The CDC said that adults receiving dialysis for kidney failure were 100 times more likely to have a staph bloodstream infection than the general US population. Needles and catheters are used to connect patients to dialysis, and bacteria such as staph can enter the patient’s bloodstream during this process. Staph infections are serious and sometimes fatal.
The head of the CDC’s dialysis safety team, Dr. “Infections are known to be the second leading cause of death in dialysis patients — it’s all infections, not just bloodstream infections,” Shannon Novosaid told reporters during a call on Monday. “They are one of the leading reasons for hospitalization for these patients.”
According to the CDC, more than 800,000 people in the US are living with kidney failure, 70% of whom are on dialysis.
People of color, however, face a higher risk of kidney failure, representing more than half of dialysis patients. According to CDC data, the rate of kidney failure is four times higher in black people than in white people and two times higher in Hispanic people. Black people represent 33% of all patients in the US on dialysis.
The CDC noted that black and Hispanic people on dialysis were more likely to get staph infections than white patients. Data analyzing dialysis patients from 2017 to 2020 did not provide an explicit calculation of the increased risk for black patients. However, according to the CDC, Hispanic patients had a 40% higher risk of staph infection than whites.
Novosaid said more patients on dialysis with staph bloodstream infections lived in areas with higher poverty, greater household crowding and lower education levels. About 42% of staph infections among dialysis patients occurred in areas with the highest levels of poverty, they said.
The CDC study looked at data from select counties in seven states from 2017 to 2020. The states are California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, New York, Tennessee, and Minnesota.
According to the CDC, bloodstream infections among patients on dialysis decreased by 40% from 2014 to 2019 due to staff and patient education. The use of fistulas and grafts to connect the patient’s circulation to the dialysis machine reduces the risk of infection compared to catheters.
“Prevention of staph bloodstream infections begins with early detection of chronic kidney disease to prevent or delay the need for dialysis,” said Dr. Debra Houry, CDC’s chief medical officer.