Meniere's disease: importance of socioeconomic and environmental factors

1. Describe the prevalence of Meniere's disease in the United States. 2. Recognize important patient and environmental factors in Meniere's disease.

• Discharge data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, the largest US all-payer inpatient care database was analyzed for Meniere's disease between 2008 and 2010 in patients > 10 years old. Patient characteristics including prevalence, age, sex, race, household income, and geographic location were studied to determine any correlation with disease prevalence. • T-test, Chi-square and logistic regression testing was used to compare the differences between groups for continuous and categorical data.

• The lower limit of Meniere's prevalence in the United States population was 73 per 100,000, females 84 per 100,000 compared to 56 per 100,000 among males (OR = 1.51, 95% CI 1.48-1.54, P < 0.01). • Prevalence was highest in Caucasians 91 per 100,000, and was significantly higher than other ethnic groups (P < 0.05). • Prevalence increased as age with the highest prevalence found in 81-90 year age group. • Midwest prevalence (94 per 100,000) was significantly higher than other regions (P < 0.001). • Meniere's is more common in less populated locations and the prevalence decreased as population increased. • Meniere's prevalence increased with household income. The highest prevalence was found among the 76th-100th quartile with rates of 86 per 100,000 for MD.

Environmental factors, race and ethnicity, gender and age appear to be important factors in the prevalence of Meniere's disease.