Incidence of Mpox Higher for Most Racial, Ethnic-Minority Groups

FRIDAY, April 14, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Most racial and ethnic-minority groups had a higher incidence of mpox than non-Hispanic White men, according to research published in the April 14 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Krishna Kiran Kota, Ph.D., from the CDC Mpox Emergency Response Team, and colleagues calculated rate ratios (RRs) for incidence and vaccination rates and vaccination-to-case ratios in men aged 18 years and older to examine racial and ethnic disparities in mpox incidence and vaccination rates.

The researchers found that in all racial and ethnic-minority groups except non-Hispanic Asian men, incidence was higher than among non-Hispanic White men. Incidence was higher among non-Hispanic Black or African and Hispanic or Latino men than among White men at the peak of the outbreak (August 2022; RRs, 6.9 and 4.1, respectively). Vaccination rates were higher among racial and ethnic-minority groups than among White men. However, Black and Hispanic men had lower vaccination-to-case ratios than White men during the full analytic period (8.8 and 16.2, respectively, versus 42.5).

“These findings illustrate the potential impact of and continued need for equity-based vaccination strategies, such as community-specific tailored messaging and expansion of vaccination services to reach racial and ethnic minority groups,” the authors write.