What is it about?
This study examined the number of sepsis cases and the frequency of deaths among people hospitalized in the United States over a 23-year period from 1979 through 2000, and found that the number of sepsis cases was increasing, the risk of dying was decreasing, there were changes in the infectious organisms causing sepsis, and there were racial and gender disparities in the incidence of sepsis in the United States.
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Why is it important?
This is the first national and longitudinal assessment of sepsis in the United States and the first to report health disparities in sepsis. This publication laid the foundation for subsequent studies exploring critical care epidemiology, health disparities in critical care, use of administrative data, and expansion of efforts in the nascent field of critical care health services research.
Perspectives
This study opened many people's eyes, including my own, about the frequency and deadliness of sepsis, and how important it is to look for disparities even where they're not suspected. This study is also important because it led to many important discussions and subsequent work on how best to use administrative data in critical care epidemiology and for health services research.
Professor Greg Martin
Emory University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Epidemiology of Sepsis in the United States from 1979 through 2000, The New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery and the Collateral Branches of Science, April 2003, New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM/MMS),
DOI: 10.1056/nejmoa022139.
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