Describing characteristics and treatment patterns of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 by race and ethnicity in a national RWD during the early months of the pandemic

Sarah E Vititoe, Imaani J Easthausen, Tamar Lasky, Aloka Chakravarty, Marie C Bradley, Laura M Roe, Nicolle M Gatto, Andrew R Weckstein and Elizabeth M Garry

PLOS ONE, 2022, vol. 17, issue 9, 1-13

Abstract: Objective: To describe differences by race and ethnicity in treatment patterns among hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the US from March-August 2020. Methods: Among patients in de-identified Optum electronic health record data hospitalized with COVID-19 (March-August 2020), we estimated odds ratios of receiving COVID-19 treatments of interest (azithromycin, dexamethasone, hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir, and other steroids) at hospital admission, by race and ethnicity, after adjusting for key covariates of interest. Results: After adjusting for key covariates, Black/African American patients were less likely to receive dexamethasone (adj. OR [95% CI]: 0.83 [0.71, 0.96]) and more likely to receive other steroids corticosteroids (adj. OR [95% CI]: 2.13 [1.90, 2.39]), relative to White patients. Hispanic/Latino patients were less likely to receive dexamethasone than Not Hispanic/Latino patients (adj. OR [95% CI]: 0.69 [0.58, 0.82]). Conclusions: Our findings suggest that COVID-19 treatments patients received in Optum varied by race and ethnicity after adjustment for other possible explanatory factors. In the face of rapidly evolving treatment landscapes, policies are needed to ensure equitable access to novel and repurposed therapeutics to avoid disparities in care by race and ethnicity.

Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0267815 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 67815&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:pone00:0267815

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0267815

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().