Abstract
<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Aim</jats:title> <jats:p>Little is known about how socio‐economic factors influence severe childhood bacterial infections. We explored whether parental socio‐economic status correlates with the risk of invasive bacterial infections in the offspring.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Methods</jats:title> <jats:p> Data on children < 16 years with community‐acquired blood or cerebrospinal fluid culture–positive bacterial infections during 2002–2016 were collected from the National Infectious Diseases Register for the following pathogens: <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"> <jats:italic>Streptococcus agalactiae</jats:italic> </jats:styled-content> , <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"> <jats:italic>Staphylococcus aureus</jats:italic> </jats:styled-content> , <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"> <jats:italic>Streptococcus pyogenes</jats:italic> </jats:styled-content> , <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"> <jats:italic>Streptococcus pneumoniae</jats:italic> </jats:styled-content> and <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"> <jats:italic>Escherichia coli</jats:italic> </jats:styled-content> . Statistics Finland randomly selected five age‐, sex‐ and region‐matched controls for cases, including data on parental income and education. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) for invasive bacterial infections were estimated using logistic regression. </jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Results</jats:title> <jats:p> The risk of severe bacterial infection was slightly, but not statistically increased with lowest parental income (OR 1.09, 95% CI 0.94–1.26). This risk was more evident with <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"> <jats:italic>Escherichia coli</jats:italic> </jats:styled-content> . Lower maternal education showed a slight trend towards increased risk of severe bacterial infections (ORs: primary education 1.10, 95% Cl 0.97–1.24; secondary education 1.07, 95% Cl 0.98–1.17). </jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Conclusion</jats:title> <jats:p>Despite universal healthcare and a social welfare system, our data suggest that lower parental income and maternal education may be associated with a slightly increased risk of severe bacterial infections.</jats:p> </jats:sec>