OBJECTIVES

: About 75%-85% of chronic liver diseases is caused by Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) which is the primary cause of hepatocellular carcinoma in the United States. The objective of this study is to examine factors that contribute to demographic variation of HCV prevalence in the US such as gender, race, age, education, marital status, sexual orientation and poverty level.

METHODS

: We used a weighted pooled cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2009 – 2016. Analysis was limited to participants aged 18 – 64 years (N= 15,155). Analysis were conducted using SAS (version 9.4) survey procedures to account for the multi-stage sampling framework in NHANES, at alpha significant level 0.05

RESULTS

: Out of 15,155 respondents, 248 tested positive to HCV RNA constituting a 1.1% prevalence rate. The prevalence rate of HCV were higher in males (70%), Non-Hispanic White (60%), aged between 55-64 years (39%), married (35%), had less than 12 grade level education (36.7%), heterosexual (96.7%) and are below poverty level (66.7%). After controlling for other variables in our multivariate logistic regression model, we found that females were 68% less likely to be diagnosed with HCV compared to males [OR, 0.32 (95% CI: 0.1 - 0.9)], the odds of developing HCV is 8 times greater in non-Hispanic blacks than non-Hispanic whites [OR, 8.4 (95% CI: 3.1-23.6)], the odds of developing HCV is 4 times greater in those with less than 12 grade education than those graduated from high school [OR, 4.3 (95% CI: 1.16 - 16.50)].

CONCLUSIONS

: Racial disparity is an issue in United States, with high prevalence of HCV among Non-Hispanics black. An understanding of the underlying mechanisms is an essential step in implementing measures to reduce racially based inequities affecting the management of HCV positive patients in the United States.