Estimating the prevalence of hepatitis C infection in New York City using surveillance data

Abstract

SUMMARYHepatitis C virus is the most common chronic blood-borne infection in the USA. Based on results of a serosurvey, national prevalence is estimated to be 1·3% or 3·2 million people. Sub-national estimates are not available for most jurisdictions. Hepatitis C surveillance data was adjusted for death, out-migration, under-diagnosis, and undetectable blood RNA, to estimate prevalence in New York City (NYC). The prevalence of hepatitis C infection in adults aged ⩾20 years in NYC is 2·37% (range 1·53–4·90%) or 146 500 cases of hepatitis C. This analysis presents a mechanism for generating prevalence estimates using local surveillance data accounting for biases and difficulty in accessing hard to reach populations. As the cohort of patients with hepatitis C age and require additional medical care, local public health officials will need a method to generate prevalence estimates to allocate resources. This approach can serve as a guideline for generating local estimates using surveillance data that is less resource prohibitive.

Factors Associated With Hepatitis C Infection Among HIV-Infected Men Who Have Sex With Men With No Reported Injection Drug Use in New York City, 2000–2010

“…3 The prevalence of diagnosed HCV in this study population of HIV-infected MSM was 4.9%, nearly 5 times higher than the national prevalence of 1.0% 21 and double the general NYC prevalence of 2.4%. 22 The racial/ethnic disparity of HCV diagnosis rates among non-IDU HIV-infected MSM is striking. Non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics had an adjusted rate of HCV diagnosis approximately 1.5 times greater than that of non-Hispanic whites; this is consistent with the disparity in HCV found among HIV-infected people in NYC overall.…”

A Bayesian evidence synthesis approach to estimate disease prevalence in hard-to-reach populations: hepatitis C in New York City

“…For HANES, we use an age--stratified version 4 of the 2.2% estimate described above from Bornschlegel et al [Bornschlegel 2009]. Because the adjusted surveillance estimate [Balter 2014] is neither age nor IDU risk--group stratified, we use its overall estimate of 2.37%. For our study, we use age and risk--group stratified HCV prevalence estimates from Table 3.…”

“…First, because data for individuals older than 59 were not available in several of our data sources, our estimates do not include individuals older than 59. However, they do include the age group of 50--59 years, which has been suggested as the peak age group for HCV prevalence [Balter 2014] at present. Similar data constraints prevented us from including individuals under age 20.…”

Evaluation of a hepatitis C clinical care coordination programme’s effect on treatment initiation and cure: A surveillance‐based propensity score matching approach

“…An estimated 2‐4 million people in the United States (US) are chronically infected with HCV, with most unaware of their infection status . In New York City (NYC), an estimated 146 500 people are infected with HCV . New HCV therapies, termed direct‐acting antivirals (DAAs), have led to considerable improvements in achieving cure or sustained virological response (SVR) .…”