Social Disparities in HCV Infections among Puerto Rico Islanders

HCV is a socially invisible disease commonly under-study as most of the affected individuals are IDU's. Indeed in Puerto Rico there is a gap in the knowledge about HCV seroprevalence among the islanders and how sociodemograhic characteristics impacts the disease. This study aims to describe the HCV epidemic in the northwestern, western and southern regions of Puerto Rico as well as to see socio-demographic characteristics' relates to HCV.  This study assessed the HCV sero-prevalence in Puerto Rico since 1997 to June 2013. All data was entered in STATA 12.0 for statistical analysis and GIS for geospatial visualization of results. A total of 4,434 cases were reported between 1997 – 2013.  The mean age at the time of diagnosis was 43.61 years, 74.9% of them were males, and only 25.8% of the cases were diagnosed using PCR or RIBA test presenting different subtypes. There were significant gender differences for age of diagnosis (p < .05) and significant geographical association for HCV cases was observed. Age of diagnosis variance was also significantly explained by geographical area where those in the northwestern area were more likely to be diagnosed at a younger age (p< .01). There were no significant associations between gender and confirmatory diagnosis but gender differences were observed by region (p<.001).  In conclusion, this study describes the current status of the HCV epidemic in Puerto Rico showing significant health disparities due to social determinants.  The study also poses the trends for the development of health policies that help reduce health disparities.