Hepatitis C Screening and Antibody Prevalence Among Newly Arrived Refugees to the United States, 2010-2017

Kailey Urban; Colleen Payton; Blain Mamo; Hannah Volkman; Katherine Giorgio; Lori Kennedy; Yuli Chen Bomber; Kristine Knuti Rodrigues; Janine Young; Carol Tumaylle; Jasmine Matheson; Azadeh Tasslimi; Jessica Montour; Emily Jentes

doi:10.1007/s10903-023-01471-8

Hepatitis C Screening and Antibody Prevalence Among Newly Arrived Refugees to the United States, 2010-2017

J Immigr Minor Health. 2023 Dec;25(6):1323-1330. doi: 10.1007/s10903-023-01471-8. Epub 2023 Mar 30.

Authors

Kailey Urban¹, Colleen Payton^{2

3}, Blain Mamo⁴, Hannah Volkman⁴, Katherine Giorgio⁴, Lori Kennedy⁵, Yuli Chen Bomber⁵, Kristine Knuti Rodrigues⁶, Janine Young⁶, Carol Tumaylle⁷, Jasmine Matheson⁸, Azadeh Tasslimi⁸, Jessica Montour⁹, Emily Jentes¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Minnesota Department of Health, Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention, and Control Division, St. Paul, MN, 55164, Türkiye. kailey.urban@state.mn.us.
² School of Nursing and Public Health, Moravian University, Bethlehem, PA, U.S.
³ Department of Family and Community Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
⁴ Minnesota Department of Health, Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention, and Control Division, St. Paul, MN, 55164, Türkiye.
⁵ Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Newcomer Health Program, Health Equity Branch, Disease Control and Public Health Response Division, Denver, CO, USA.
⁶ Denver Health and Hospitals, Department of General Pediatrics, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, USA.
⁷ Colorado Department of Human Services, Colorado Refugee Services Program, Denver, CO, USA.
⁸ Washington State Department of Health, Office of Communicable Disease Epidemiology, Refugee and Immigrant Health Program, Shoreline, WA, USA.
⁹ U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Refugee Health Services, Austin, TX, USA.
¹⁰ National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA.

Abstract

Six refugee screening sites collaborated to estimate the prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) antibodies among newly arrived refugees in the United States from 2010 to 2017, identify demographic characteristics associated with HCV antibody positivity, and estimate missed HCV antibody-positive adults among unscreened refugees. We utilized a cross-sectional study to examine HCV prevalence among refugees (N = 144,752). A predictive logistic regression model was constructed to determine the effectiveness of current screening practices at identifying cases. The prevalence of HCV antibodies among the 64,703 refugees screened was 1.6%. Refugees from Burundi (5.4%), Moldova (3.8%), Democratic Republic of Congo (3.2%), Burma (2.8%), and Ukraine (2.0%) had the highest positivity among refugee arrivals. An estimated 498 (0.7%) cases of HCV antibody positivity were missed among 67,787 unscreened adults. The domestic medical examination represents an opportunity to screen all adult refugees for HCV to ensure timely diagnosis and treatment.

Keywords: Hepatitis C; Immigrants; Refugee Health; Screening.

MeSH terms

Adult
Cross-Sectional Studies
Hepatitis C* / diagnosis
Hepatitis C* / epidemiology
Humans
Mass Screening
Prevalence
Refugees*
United States / epidemiology

Abstract

MeSH terms

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