Racial and neighborhood disparities in mortality among hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the United States: An analysis of the CDC case surveillance database

Atarere Joseph, Tarsicio Uribe-Leitz, Tanujit Dey, Joaquim Havens, Zara Cooper and Nakul Raykar

PLOS Global Public Health, 2022, vol. 2, issue 11, 1-17

Abstract: Background: Black and Hispanic populations have higher overall COVID-19 infection and mortality odds compared to Whites. Some state-wide studies conducted in the early months of the pandemic found no in-hospital racial disparities in mortality. Methods: We performed chi-square and logistic regression analyses on the CDC COVID-19 Case Surveillance Restricted Database. The primary outcome of the study was all-cause in-hospital mortality. The primary exposures were racial group (White, Black, Hispanic and Others) and neighborhood type (low vulnerability, moderate vulnerability, high vulnerability, very high vulnerability). Findings: The overall unadjusted mortality rate was 33% and was lowest among Hispanics. In the fully adjusted models, Blacks and Hispanics had higher overall odds of dying [OR of 1.20 (95% CI 1.15, 1.25) and 1.23 (95% CI 1.17, 1.28) respectively] compared with White patients, and patients from neighborhoods with very high vulnerability had the highest mortality odds in the Northeast, Midwest and overall [Adjusted OR 2.08 (95% CI 1.91, 2.26)]. In the Midwest, Blacks and Hispanics had higher odds of mortality compared with Whites, but this was not observed in other regions. Interpretation: Among hospitalized COVID-19 patients, Blacks and Hispanics were more likely to die compared to Whites in the Midwest. Patients from highly vulnerable neighborhoods also had the highest likelihood of death in the Northeast and Midwest. These results raise important questions on our efforts to curb healthcare disparities and structural racism in the healthcare setting.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/artic ... journal.pgph.0000701 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/artic ... 00701&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pgph00:0000701

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0000701

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS Global Public Health from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by globalpubhealth ().