Risk factors for septicemia-associated mortality in older adults

Septicemia is the 10th leading cause of death among older adults in the United States; its mortality rate has steadily increased over the past decades. Little is known about factors which predispose to septicemia mortality in the elderly. The authors investigated risk factors for septicemia-associated mortality in 10,269 older adults as part of a longitudinal study of three communities (East Boston, MA; New Haven, CT; and Iowa and Washington Counties, IA). During 6 years of followup, 177 persons (3.2 per 1,000 person-years) had septicemia ICD9 038 (International Classification of Diseases, ninth revision) reported on their death certificate. In a multivariate proportional-hazards model, septicemia mortality was significantly (P < 0.05) and independently associated with age, male sex, history of diabetes, history of cancer requiring hospitalization, smoking one pack of cigarettes per day or more, not drinking alcohol in the year prior to baseline, disability in activities of daily living, cognitive impairment, and missing cognitive testing score. These factors might be useful in developing an at-risk population for testing septicemia treatment or prevention strategies in a community setting. Further investigation is needed to explain underlying mechanisms of increased risk of subsequent septicemia.