The impact of socioeconomic status on bulk semen parameters, fertility treatment, and fertility outcomes in a cohort of subfertile men.

OBJECTIVE

To study the effect of socioeconomic status on the use of fertility treatment and the rate of live birth in men with subfertility.

DESIGN

A retrospective, time-to-event analysis of men with subfertility in Utah stratified by socioeconomic status.

SETTING

Patients seen in fertility clinics throughout Utah.

PATIENT(S): All men in Utah undergoing semen analysis between 1998 and 2017 at the state's 2 largest health care networks.

INTERVENTION(S): Socioeconomic status (defined as area deprivation index of patients' residential location).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Categorical use of fertility treatment, the count of fertility treatments (in patients with ≥1 treatment), and live birth after semen analysis.

RESULT(S): When controlling for age, ethnicity, and semen parameters (count and concentration), men from low socioeconomic areas were only 60%-70% as likely to use fertility treatment depending on type compared with men from high socioeconomic areas (intrauterine insemination [IUI] hazards ratio [HR] = 0.691 (0.581-0.821), P<.001; in vitro fertilization [IVF] HR = 0.602 (0.466-0.778), P<.001). Of men undergoing fertility treatment, those from low socioeconomic areas had 75%-80% the number of treatments as men from high socioeconomic areas depending on type (IUI incident rate ratio = 0.740 (0.645-0.847), P<.001; IVF incident rate ratios = 0.803 (0.585-1.094), P=.170). When controlling for age, ethnicity, semen parameters, and use of fertility treatment, men from low socioeconomic areas were only 87% as likely to experience a live birth as men from high socioeconomic areas (HR = 0.871 (0.820-0.925), P<.001). Given the overall higher likelihood of live birth in men from high socioeconomic areas, as well as their greater chance of using fertility treatment, we predicted an annual disparity of 5 additional live births in high socioeconomic men compared with low for every 100 men.

CONCLUSION(S): Men from low socioeconomic areas undergoing semen analyses are significantly less likely to use fertility treatment and experience a live birth than their counterparts from high socioeconomic areas. Mitigation programs to increase access to fertility treatment may help to reduce this bias; however, our results suggest that additional discrepancies beyond fertility treatment require addressing.