Prevalence of USA300 Colonization or Infection and Associated Variables During an Outbreak of Community‐Associated Methicillin‐Resistant <i>Staphylococcus aureus</i> in a Marginalized Urban Population
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: In 2004, an outbreak of the USA300 strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was identified in persons with histories of homelessness, illicit drug use or incarceration in the Calgary Health Region (Calgary, Alberta). A prevalence study was conducted to test the hypotheses for factors associated with USA300 colonization or infection. METHODS: Participants were recruited at sites accessed by this marginalized population. Health care staff administered a questionnaire and collected crack pipes and nasal, axillary and skin infection swabs. Pipes and swabs were cultured according to standard techniques. MRSA isolates were further characterized by polymerase chain reaction (mecA, Panton-Valentine leukocidin and Staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec) and typing methods (pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, staphylococcal protein A typing and multilocus sequence typing). Colonization or infection was determined by having any one of nasal, axillary, skin infection or pipe swabs positive for USA300. Colonized participants had one or more nasal, axillary or pipe swab positive for USA300; infected participants had one or more skin infection swab positive for USA300. RESULTS: The prevalence of USA300 colonization or infection among 271 participants was 5.5% (range 3.1% to 9.0%). USA300 cases were more likely to report manipulation of skin infections (OR 9.55; 95% CI 2.74 to 33.26); use of crack pipes was not significant despite identification of the USA300 strain on two of four crack pipes tested. USA300 cases were more likely to report drug use between sex trade workers and clients (OR 5.86; 95% CI 1.63 to 21.00), and with casual sex partners (OR 5.40; 95% CI 1.64 to 17.78). CONCLUSION: Ongoing efforts to promote the appropriate treatment of skin infections in this population are warranted. The association of USA300 colonization or infection and drug use with sexual partners suggest a role for sexual transmission of the USA300 strain of MRSA.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".