Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-20-2025

Identifier

DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiaf472; PMCID: PMC12718065

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Where surveillance data are limited, nationally representative electronic health records allow for geographic, temporal, and demographic characterization of the fungal diseases blastomycosis and histoplasmosis.

METHODS: We identified incident blastomycosis and histoplasmosis cases from 2013 to 2023 within Oracle EHR Real-World Data, which comprises 1.6 billion healthcare encounters nationally. To characterize spatiotemporal incidence trends, we used generalized estimating equations weighted for nonrepresentativeness of electronic health record-reporting facilities. We computed standardized incidence rate ratios (sIRRs), which relay relative differences in standardized incidence rates between regions, race/ethnicity, gender, and age subgroups and the national population.

RESULTS: National incidence rates in 2023 were 2.4 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.6-3.5) and 1.9 times (95% CI: 1.6-2.2) rates in 2013, for blastomycosis and histoplasmosis, respectively. Blastomycosis incidence rates among Hispanic or Latino and non-Hispanic Black individuals were 60% (sIRR: 1.6 [95% CI: 1.0-2.4]) and 30% (sIRR: 1.3 [95% CI: 1.0-1.6]) higher than the standardized national incidence rate. Histoplasmosis incidence rates were elevated among non-Hispanic White patients (sIRR: 1.05 [95% CI: 1.02-1.08]). Standardized incidence rates of both diseases were higher among older and male patients, were consistently elevated in the Upper Midwest and Ohio Valley regions, and increased greatly in the Northern Rockies and Plains from 2013 to 2023. We estimated high incidence in states (blastomycosis: Illinois, Kentucky, and West Virginia; histoplasmosis: Missouri, Iowa, and Oklahoma) that do not report to surveillance.

CONCLUSIONS: This analysis revealed increasing incidence rates of blastomycosis and histoplasmosis, with increasing diagnoses outside of historically endemic regions, and notable differences in incidence by race/ethnicity, gender, and age.

Journal Title

The Journal of infectious diseases

Volume

232

Issue

6

First Page

1048

Last Page

1059

MeSH Keywords

Humans; Histoplasmosis; Male; Blastomycosis; Female; Adult; Middle Aged; United States; Incidence; Electronic Health Records; Adolescent; Aged; Young Adult; Child; Child, Preschool; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Aged, 80 and over

PubMed ID

40928323

Keywords

blastomycosis; disease emergence; electronic health records; endemic mycoses; histoplasmosis

Comments

Grants and funding

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited

Publisher's Link: https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/232/6/e1048/8250547?login=false

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