• Am J Emerg Med · Jul 2021

    Racial/ethnic disparities in COVID-19 disease burden & mortality among emergency department patients in a safety net health system.

    • Nana-Yaa Misa, Berenice Perez, Kellie Basham, Essence Fisher-Hobson, Brittany Butler, Kolette King, WhiteDouglas A EDAEDepartment of Emergency Medicine, Alameda Health System, United States of America., and Erik S Anderson.
    • Department of Emergency Medicine, Alameda Health System, United States of America. Electronic address: namisa@alamedahealthsystem.org.
    • Am J Emerg Med. 2021 Jul 1; 45: 451457451-457.

    BackgroundWe sought to examine racial and ethnic disparities in test positivity rate and mortality among emergency department (ED) patients tested for COVID-19 within an integrated public health system in Northern California.MethodsIn this retrospective study we analyzed data from patients seen at three EDs and tested for COVID-19 between April 6 through May 4, 2020. The primary outcome was the test positivity rate by race and ethnicity, and the secondary outcome was 30 day in-hospital mortality. We used multivariable logistic regression to examine associations with COVID-19 test positivity.ResultsThere were 526 patients tested for COVID-19, of whom 95 (18.1%) tested positive. The mean age of patients tested was 54.2 years, 54.7% were male, and 76.1% had at least one medical comorbidity. Black patients accounted for 40.7% of those tested but 16.8% of the positive tests, and Latinx patients accounted for 26.4% of those tested but 58.9% of the positive tests. The test positivity rate among Latinx patients was 40.3% (56/139) compared with 10.1% (39/387) among non-Latinx patients (p < 0.001). Latinx ethnicity was associated with COVID-19 test positivity (adjusted odds ratio 9.6, 95% confidence interval: 3.5-26.0). Mortality among Black patients was higher than non-Black patients (18.7% vs 1.3%, p < 0.001).ConclusionWe report a significant disparity in COVID-19 adjusted test positivity rate and crude mortality rate among Latinx and Black patients, respectively. Results from ED-based testing can identify racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 testing, test positivity rates, and mortality associated with COVID-19 infection and can be used by health departments to inform policy.Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…