SynthesisBMJ global health2025
Sex differences in bacterial meningitis and associations with socioeconomic indicators: a systematic review and meta-analysis with metaregression.
Synthesis in BMJ global health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- The persistent challenge of meningitis in the vaccine era: a three-decade longitudinal analysis of residual burden in the United States.Infection · 2026Article
- Changing Etiological Patterns of Pediatric Meningitis: A Three-Year Experience from a Tertiary Pediatric Emergency Hospital in Romania.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2026Article
- Incidence of Neonatal Meningitis and the Premature Mortality in Eastern Sub-saharan Africa, From 1990 to 2023: A Global Burden of Diseases Study.Sage open pediatricsArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionWe aimed to describe global sex-specific proportions and case fatality ratios of bacterial meningitis and to explore their associations with the Human Development Index (HDI) and Gender Inequality Index (GII).
methodsGoogle Scholar and MEDLINE (via PubMed.gov) were searched in January 2022 using the terms "bacterial meningitis" and "mortality". Studies with a mean observation period after the year 1940 and reporting ≥10 patients with community-acquired bacterial meningitis and their survival status were included, irrespective of the participants' age. Studies that selected participants by specific risk factors, reported specific pathogens only, or had >10% missing outcomes were disregarded. Data were extracted by one researcher and validated by a second researcher. The main outcomes, sex-specific proportions and case fatality ratios, were analysed using random-effects models. Associations with HDI and GII were explored using metaregression.
resultsIn this meta-analysis with metaregression, from 371 studies with 157 656 meningitis episodes, 217 (58%) reported the patients' sex and 41 (11%) reported sex-specific outcomes. Proportion of males was 58% (95% CI 57%-59%, prediction interval (PI) 45%-71%). Case fatality ratios were slightly higher in females (male-to-female fatality ratio, 0.89, 95% CI 0.78 to 1.01, PI 0.53-1.49). The size of the male proportion was strongly associated with HDI (per index point, -0.64, 95% CI -0.88 to -0.40; R
conclusionBased on worldwide reporting from the last 80 years, we show that indicators of human development and gender inequality are associated with sex-based disparities and case fatality ratios in bacterial meningitis.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.