In general, the risk factors for staph infections include impaired immunity and exposure to a hospital or other clinical settings. More specific risk factors for the two types of MRSA infection are provided below.

The risk factors for community-associated MRSA (CA-MRSA) contracted outside of healthcare settings include:

• Young age: Because children have less-developed immune systems, they are more likely to contact MRSA infections. In addition, the rough-and-tumble play that many children engage in causes frequent cuts and scrapes that can serve as entry points for MRSA bacteria.
• Contact sports: Playing a contact sport such as football or wrestling increases MRSA risk by increasing close physical contact among individuals and also by providing routes of entry for the bacteria through cuts and abrasions.
• Sharing items: Sharing towels, razors, combs, athletic equipment, or other items that have close contact with your body can help spread the MRSA bacterium.
• Weakened immune system: People with weakened immune systems, such as the elderly and those living with HIV/AIDS, are more likely to experience severe CA-MRSA infections.
• Crowded or unsanitary conditions: Living in crowded conditions, especially ones that are not sanitary, can cause MRSA to spread rapidly. Outbreaks of CA-MRSA have occurred in military training camps, dormitories, and prisons.
• Skin breaks: People with skin breaks caused by chronic skin conditions such as psoriasis or by other causes.
• Chronic diseases: Having a chronic disease such as diabetes or cancer can also increase your risk of MRSA infection.

Risk factors for health care-associated MRSA (HA-MRSA) include:

• Hospitalization: Ironically, the best place to get a severe MRSA infection is in the hospital. When someone is currently hospitalized or was recently released from the hospital, especially when the stay was more than 14 days, the risk HA-MRSA infection goes way up.
• Invasive procedures: While any hospital stay increases MRSA risk, undergoing invasive procedures in a health care setting increases MRSA risk even further. Surgical patients, patients with intravenous lines, catheters, or feeding tubes, and patients undergoing dialysis are at greater risk of contracting HA-MRSA.
• Exposed wounds: Having exposed wounds, like burn victims and patients with bedsores or other skin ulcers do, puts you at greater risk of contracting HA-MRSA.
• Health care work: people who work in hospitals or other health care settings or those who are in close contact with health care workers are at increased risk of serious staph infections.
• Living in a long term care facility: MRSA is also prevalent in these facilities and can spread easily among residents.
• Recent antibiotic use: Recent treatment with antibiotics from the fluoroquinolone class (ciprofloxacin, ofloxacin, or levofloxacin) or use of cephalosporin antibiotics can increase the risk of HA-MRSA.