Abstract

Within the UK, child mortality from all causes has declined for all ages over the last three decades. However, distinct inequality remains, as child mortality rates are generally found to be higher in males. A significant proportion of childhood deaths in the UK occur in Paediatric Intensive Care Units (PICU). We studied the association of sex with infant mortality in PICUs. We included all infants (0 to 12 months old) admitted to UK PICUs from 01/01/2005 to 31/12/2015 using the Paediatric Intensive Care Audit Network (PICANet) dataset. We considered first admissions to PICU and fitted a cause-specific-hazard-ratio (CSHR) model, and a logistic model to estimate the adjusted association between sex and mortality in PICU. Pre-defined subgroups were children less than 56-days old, and those with a primary diagnosis of infection. Of 71,243 cases, 1,411/29,520 (4.8%) of females, and 1,809/41,723 (4.3%) of males died. The adjusted male/female CSHR was 0.87 (95%-CI 0.81 to 0.92) representing a 13% higher risk of death for females. The adjusted OR for male to female mortality is 0.86 (95%-CI 0.80 to 0.93). Analyses in subgroups yielded similar findings. In our analysis, female infants have a higher rate of PICU mortality compared to male infants.

Details

Title
A study of sex difference in infant mortality in UK pediatric intensive care admissions over an 11-year period
Author
Ofran, Almossawi 1 ; O’Brien Scott 2 ; Parslow, Roger 3 ; Nadel, Simon 2 ; Palla Luigi 4 

 GOS UCL Institute of Child Health, Department of Population, Policy and Practice, London, UK (GRID:grid.83440.3b) (ISNI:0000000121901201); Great Ormond Street Hospital, Pharmacy Department, London, UK (GRID:grid.420468.c) 
 Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, London, UK (GRID:grid.417895.6) (ISNI:0000 0001 0693 2181) 
 University of Leeds, Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine, Leeds, UK (GRID:grid.9909.9) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 8403) 
 University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases, Rome, Italy (GRID:grid.7841.a); London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Department of Medical Statistics, London, UK (GRID:grid.8991.9) (ISNI:0000 0004 0425 469X); Nagasaki University, School of Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki, Japan (GRID:grid.174567.6) (ISNI:0000 0000 8902 2273) 
Publication year
2021
Publication date
2021
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2594889682
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2021. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.