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Risk factors
By Mayo Clinic staffNot completing the childhood vaccine schedule increases your risk of meningitis. So do a few other risk factors:
- Age. Most cases of viral meningitis occur in children younger than age 5. In the past, bacterial meningitis also usually affected young children. But since the mid-1980s, as a result of the protection offered by current childhood vaccines, the median age at which bacterial meningitis is diagnosed has shifted from 15 months to 25 years.
- Living in a community setting. College students living in dormitories, personnel on military bases, and children in boarding schools and child care facilities are at increased risk of meningococcal meningitis, probably because infectious diseases tend to spread quickly wherever large groups of people congregate.
- Pregnancy. If you're pregnant, you're at increased of contracting listeriosis — an infection caused by listeria bacteria, which may also cause meningitis. If you have listeriosis, your unborn baby is at risk, too.
- Working with animals. People who work with domestic animals, including dairy farmers and ranchers, have a higher risk of contracting listeria, which can lead to meningitis.
- Compromised immune system. Factors that may compromise your immune system — including AIDS, diabetes and use of immunosuppressant drugs — also make you more susceptible to meningitis. Removal of your spleen, an important part of your immune system, also may increase your risk.
