Investigating disparities in hospitalization among COVID-19 patients in the United States

Minorities and vulnerable communities in the United States have been considerably affected by the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigates whether the pandemic had a differential impact on individuals based on demographic characteristics, such as race, gender, education, and income, by studying patients who tested positive for COVID-19 and were hospitalized due to COVID-19. I analyzed the demographic factors of the patients in a large-scale health record database system integrated with a database of publicly available consumer data by conducting descriptive and statistical analyses. Our analysis demonstrated which demographic and socioeconomic factors have more impact on hospitalization of the patients who tested positive for COVID-19. Through the logistic regression analysis, I found that there are some specific types of patients who are more likely to be hospitalized than others who did not have the same characteristics. Beyond the descriptive and statistical analyses, this understanding of the demographic factors of the patients in a commercial electronic health records system can be a foundation for further research on demographic and socioeconomic disparities in access to and use of medical resources and treatments, severity of illness, and complications during a pandemic.