@article {Ebinger166, author = {Joseph E Ebinger and Matthew Driver and Hongwei Ji and Brian Claggett and Min Wu and Eric Luong and Nancy Sun and Patrick Botting and Elizabeth H Kim and Amy Hoang and Trevor Trung Nguyen and Jacqueline Diaz and Eunice Park and Tod Davis and Shehnaz Hussain and Susan Cheng and Jane C Figueiredo}, title = {Temporal variations in the severity of COVID-19 illness by race and ethnicity}, volume = {4}, number = {1}, pages = {166--173}, year = {2021}, doi = {10.1136/bmjnph-2021-000253}, publisher = {BMJ Specialist Journals}, abstract = {Introduction Early reports highlighted racial/ethnic disparities in the severity of COVID-19 seen across the USA; the extent to which these disparities have persisted over time remains unclear. Our research objective was to understand temporal trends in racial/ethnic variation in severity of COVID-19 illness presenting over time.Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort analysis using longitudinal data from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a high-volume health system in Southern California. We studied patients admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 illness from 4 March 2020 through 5 December 2020. Our primary outcome was COVID-19 severity of illness among hospitalised patients, assessed by racial/ethnic group status. We defined overall illness severity as an ordinal outcome: hospitalisation but no intensive care unit (ICU) admission; admission to the ICU but no intubation; and intubation or death.Results A total of 1584 patients with COVID-19 with available demographic and clinical data were included. Hispanic/Latinx compared with non-Hispanic white patients had higher odds of experiencing more severe illness among hospitalised patients (OR 2.28, 95\% CI 1.62 to 3.22) and this disparity persisted over time. During the initial 2 months of the pandemic, non-Hispanic blacks were more likely to suffer severe illness than non-Hispanic whites (OR 2.02, 95\% CI 1.07 to 3.78); this disparity improved by May, only to return later in the pandemic.Conclusion In our patient sample, the severity of observed COVID-19 illness declined steadily over time, but these clinical improvements were not seen evenly across racial/ethnic groups; greater illness severity continues to be experienced among Hispanic/Latinx patients.Data are available upon reasonable request. Data that support the findings of this study are available from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Data are not publicly available due to content including information that could compromise research participant privacy/consent.}, URL = {https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/4/1/166}, eprint = {https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/4/1/166.full.pdf}, journal = {BMJ Nutrition, Prevention \& Health} }