AUTHOR=Ghaffari-Rafi Arash , Mehdizadeh Rana , Ko Andrew Wai Kei , Ghaffari-Rafi Shadeh , Leon-Rojas Jose 

TITLE=Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension in the United States: Demographic and Socioeconomic Disparities

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neurology

VOLUME=11

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2020.00869

DOI=10.3389/fneur.2020.00869

ISSN=1664-2295

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Background:</bold> Obesity's risk increases for low-income, female, young, and Black patients. By extrapolation, idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH)—a disease associated with body mass index—would potentially display socioeconomic and demographic disparities.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> IIH incidence (per 100,000) was investigated with respect to sex, age, income, residence, and race/ethnicity, by querying the largest United States (US) healthcare administrative dataset (1997–2016), the National (Nationwide) Inpatient Sample.</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> Annual national incidence (with 25th and 75th quartiles) for IIH was 1.15 (0.91, 1.44). Females had an incidence of 1.97 (1.48, 2.48), larger (<italic>p</italic> = 0.0000038) than males at 0.36 (0.26, 0.38). Regarding age, largest incidence was among those 18–44 years old at 2.47 (1.84, 2.73). Low-income patients had an incidence of 1.56 (1.47, 1.82), larger (<italic>p</italic> = 0.00024) than the 1.21 (1.01, 1.36) of the middle/high. No differences (χ<sup>2</sup> = 4.67, <italic>p</italic> = 0.097) were appreciated between urban (1.44; 1.40, 1.61), suburban (1.30; 1.09, 1.40), or rural (1.46; 1.40, 1.48) communities. For race/ethnicity (χ<sup>2</sup> = 57, <italic>p</italic> = 2.57 × 10<sup>−12</sup>), incidence was largest for Blacks (2.05; 1.76, 2.74), followed by Whites (1.04; 0.79, 1.41), Hispanics (0.67; 0.57, 0.94), and Asian/Pacific Islanders (0.16; 0.11, 0.19). Year-to-year, incidence rose for all strata subsets except Asian/Pacific Islanders (τ = −0.84, <italic>p</italic> = 0.00000068).</p><p><bold>Conclusion:</bold> IIH demonstrates several sociodemographic disparities. Specifically, incidences are larger for those low-income, Black, 18–44 years old, or female, while annually increasing for all subsets, except Asian/Pacific Islanders. Hence, IIH differentially afflicts the US population, yielding in healthcare inequalities.</p>