Environmental and biological factors can also increase a person’s risk of developing meningococcal disease. Environmental factors include smoking or living with a smoker, alcohol consumption, and living in crowded environments that may include prisons or military settings. Low socioeconomic status and minority ethnicity have also been linked to higher rates of meningococcal disease.
Biological factors such as functional or anatomic asplenia, genetic polymorphism, and innate immune system deficiencies, as well as chronic immune system disorders such as lupus or HIV/AIDS or even a recent respiratory illness, may also increase a person’s risk of developing meningococcal disease.
Additionally, men who have sex with other men, including HIV-infected men, may also be at a greater risk for the disease. In 2020, nearly 5 percent of meningococcal cases occurred in person living with HIV disease.
A 2010 large-scale study on invasive meningococcal disease and the complications of meningitis and meningococcemia (septicemia) resulting from the disease found that individuals who developed meningitis from meningococcal disease had genetic markers in a number of genes that prevented them from fighting the meningococcal bacteria and play a significant role in the development of invasive meningococcal disease.
