Regional seropositivity for Borrelia burgdorferi and associated risk factors: findings from the Rhineland Study, Germany

Table 1 Population characteristics and stratified crude seroprevalence of IgG/IgM antibodies for B. burgdorferi s.l. and odds ratios from logistic regression analysis

Characteristics	IgG seropositive/total	IgG seroprevalence [%]	IgM seropositive/total	IgM seroprevalence [%]	IgG: odds ratios (95% CI), P-value	IgM: odds ratios (95% CI), P-value
All subjects	69/2865	2.4	18/2865	0.6	–	–
Age (years)	–	–	–	–	1.03 (1.02–1.05), < 0.001	0.99 (0.96–1.03), 0.748
Sex
Women	28/1600	1.8	11/1600	0.7	Ref	Ref
Men	41/1265	3.2	7/1265	0.6	1.65 (1.01–2.73), 0.049	0.79 (0.29–2.02), 0.627
Education (ISCED 2011)
Low	1/50	2.0	0/50	0.0	1.10 (0.06–5.45), 0.928	0.00 (NA), 0.988
Middle	23/1309	1.8	8/1309	0.6	Ref	Ref
High	45/1506	3.0	10/1506	0.7	1.83 (1.10–3.14), 0.023	1.09 (0.42–2.92), 0.853

Educational level was determined using the International Standard Classification of Education 2011 (ISCED) and was coded as low (lower secondary education or below), middle (upper secondary education to undergraduate university level) and high (postgraduate university study). The two columns on the right display the odds of having a positive serostatus for either IgG or IgM antibodies as a function of age, sex and education. Seropositive serostatus refers to all subjects that had a positive or borderline ELISA and a subsequent positive line immunoblot (MIQ 12 algorithm). Associations with a P-value below 0.05 are shown in bold
IgG immunoglobulin G antibodies; IgM immunoglobulin M antibodies; Ref reference group in the logistic regression model; CI confidence interval; NA not applicable because there were no participants in the low-education IgM seropositivity group

ISSN: 1756-3305