Table 4.

Association between total pathogen burden level and all-cause mortality in subjects aged ⩾25 years in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III (1988–1994)

	Hazard ratio (95% confidence interval)
	Model 1†	P value	Model 2‡	P value	Model 3§	P value
Total pathogen burden level		<0·001*		0·260		0·528
0	1·0	<0·001*||	1·00	0·185||	1·00	0·733||
1	2·48 (1·58–3·89)*		1·35 (0·92–1·99)		1·28 (0·88–1·88)
2	4·53 (2·90–7·08)*		1·55 (1·05–2·29)*		1·41 (0·96–2·09)
3	6·09 (4·11–9·01)*		1·42 (1·03–1·96)*		1·24 (0·90–1·71)
4	7·85 (5·27–11·69)*		1·55 (1·04–2·33)*		1·37 (0·92–2·04)
Age, years	—		1·09 (1·08–1·10)*		1·10 (1·09–1·11)*
Gender
Female	—		1·0		1·0
Male	—		1·47 (1·32–1·64)*		1·37 (1·24–1·51)*
Race/ethnicity
Non-Hispanic white	—		1·0		1·0
Non-Hispanic black	—		1·24 (1·07–1·44)*		1·22 (1·05–1·41)*
Other	—		0·68 (0·56–0·84)*		0·72 (0·60–0·87)*
Educational level, years	—		0·96 (0·94–0·98)*		0·96 (0·94–0·98)*
Body mass index, kg/m2	—		—		1·01 (1·00–1·03)
Smoking status
Never	—		—		1·0
Former	—		—		1·29 (1·11–1·49)*
Current	—		—		2·22 (1·87–2·64)*

^†Model 1 unadjusted.

^‡Model 2 adjusted for age, gender, race/ethnicity, and education level (N = 6480).

^§Model 3 additionally adjusted for body mass index and smoking status (N = 6457).

^||Two-tailed P value for test for linear triend estimated from model with total pathogen burden level treated as a continuous ordinal variable.

^*P < 0·05.