Racial disparities in central line-associated bloodstream infections: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

Michael E DeWitt; Mindy M Sampson; Shelley Kester; Emily MacNeill; Catherine Passaretti

doi:10.1017/ice.2024.147

Racial disparities in central line-associated bloodstream infections: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2024 Sep 26;45(11):1-5. doi: 10.1017/ice.2024.147. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Michael E DeWitt^{1

2}, Mindy M Sampson³, Shelley Kester⁴, Emily MacNeill⁵, Catherine Passaretti^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Section on Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.
² Department of Biology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.
³ Division of Infectious Diseases & Geographic Medicine, Department of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁴ Department of Infection Prevention, Atrium Health, Charlotte, NC, USA.
⁵ Emergency Medicine, Atrium Health, Charlotte, NC, USA.

Abstract

This retrospective cohort study analyzed differences in rates of central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) in Black and White inpatients across 11 southeastern US hospitals from 2019 to 2021. Results showed higher CLABSI rates in Black patients during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, even after adjustment for COVID-19 infection and clinical factors.