Hospitalization rates of people living with HIV in the United States, 2009.

OBJECTIVES: We determined hospitalization rates and disparities among people with HIV, which may have been underestimated in previous studies, as only those in medical care were included.

METHODS: We estimated the hospitalization rate of people with diagnosed HIV infection in the U.S. in 2009 using two nationally representative datasets. We took the number of hospitalizations from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample and searched each discharge for International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision codes for HIV infection and opportunistic infections (OIs). We divided the number of hospitalizations by the number of prevalent diagnosed HIV cases estimated by CDC to produce hospitalization rates, and then compared those rates using Z-tests.

RESULTS: The estimated nationwide hospitalization rate was 26.6 per 100 population. Women had a 51% higher rate than men (35.5 vs. 23.5 per 100 population, p=0.002). Black people (31.2 per 100 population, p=0.01) had a 42% higher rate, and Hispanic people (18.2 per 100 population, p=0.23) had an 18% lower rate than white people (22.1 per 100 population) of hospitalization for any illness. Of hospitalizations with an OI, females with HIV had a 50% higher rate than males with HIV (5.0 vs. 3.4 per 100 population, p=0.003). Black people with HIV (4.7 per 100 population, p<0.001) had a 72% higher rate and Hispanic people with HIV (2.9 per 100 population, p=0.78) had a similar rate of hospitalization with an OI compared with white people with HIV (2.7 per 100 population).

CONCLUSIONS: Hospitalization rates among people living with HIV in the U.S. are higher than have been previously estimated. Substantial gender and racial/ethnic disparities in hospitalization rates exist, suggesting that the benefits of antiretroviral therapy have not been realized across all groups equally.