Differences in mortality among patients with community-acquired pneumonia in California by ethnicity and hospital characteristics.
OBJECTIVE
To determine ethnic disparities in mortality for patients with community-acquired pneumonia, and the potential effects of hospital characteristics on disparities, we compared the risk-adjusted mortality of white, African American, Hispanic, and Asian American patients hospitalized for community-acquired pneumonia.


METHODS
We studied patients discharged with community-acquired pneumonia in 1996 from an acute care hospital in California (n = 54,874). Logistic regression models were used to examine the association between ethnicity and hospital characteristics and 30-day mortality after adjusting for clinical characteristics.


RESULTS
The overall 30-day mortality was 12.2%. After adjustment for demographic, clinical, and hospital characteristics, Hispanic (odds ratio [OR] = 0.81; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.73 to 0.90) and Asian American patients (OR = 0.88; 95% CI: 0.77 to 1.00) had lower mortality than did white patients, whereas African Americans had a similar mortality to whites (OR = 0.93; 95% CI: 0.83 to 1.06). There were no overall differences in mortality by hospital characteristics (i.e., teaching status, rural location, and public or district hospital).


CONCLUSIONS
Hispanics and Asian Americans have a lower risk of death from community-acquired pneumonia than whites in California. No overall differences in mortality were observed by hospital characteristics.
Haas
Jennifer S
JS
Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California-San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA. jhaas@partners.org
Dean
Mitzi L
ML
Hung
YunYi
Y
Rennie
Deborah J
DJ
D001741:Black or African American; D000368:Aged; D001213:Asian; D002140:California / Q000453:epidemiology; D017714:Community-Acquired Infections / Q000401:mortality; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011014:Pneumonia / Q000208:ethnology / Q000401:mortality*; D044465:White People