They're at an 89 percent higher risk of death than wealthier infected individuals
FRIDAY, Nov. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Poorer, less educated HIV patients are much more likely to die sooner than patients with a higher socioeconomic status, a new U.S. study finds.
According to the researchers, that's a troubling finding given the high rates of HIV infection among people with low socioeconomic status, Cunningham said.
"It's among these groups that the infection is increasing most rapidly, even though there are better treatments available than we used to have," study leader Dr. William Cunningham, a professor of general internal medicine and health services research at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement.
The findings show that "there's still reason for alarm, because the groups that are most likely to get infected are less likely to get treatment and are dying at much higher rates," he said. "We need to look at improving care, and find ways to help the low socioeconomic status population, and we would recommend more resources being put toward those groups."
The UCLA team studied the five-year health histories of 2,864 adults receiving HIV care. Patients in the low socioeconomic group had less than $50,000 in accumulated wealth, annual incomes below $25,000, did not have high school degrees, and were unemployed.
Between January 1996 and December 2000, 585 of the patients (20 percent) in the study died.
Those with no accumulated financial assets faced an 89 percent greater chance of dying than people with more wealth, the researchers report in the November issue of the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. People with less than a high school education were at a 53 percent greater risk of death than those with more education.
SOURCE: UCLA, news release, Oct. 31, 2005
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