Racial and Ethnic Differences in Inpatient Stays Involving Sepsis

Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Statistical Brief # 309

Sepsis is a systemic inflammatory response to infection that results in tissue damage and organ failure and can lead to death. In 2021, there were about 2.5 million inpatient stays in the U.S. related to sepsis, accounting for 9.9 percent of all hospital costs. One in three patients who died in the hospital had sepsis during their hospitalization. Despite standardization in management and treatment guidelines, racial and ethnic differences in sepsis incidence, hospitalizations, and complications persist. As of 2020, COVID-19 emerged as an important factor in understanding racial and ethnic differences in sepsis-related hospitalizations, given its association with sepsis and disproportionate impact on certain populations.

Racial and Ethnic Differences in Inpatient Stays Involving Sepsis, a statistical brief from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, presents national statistics on inpatient stays involving sepsis by patient race and ethnicity First, changes in the population rate of sepsis related inpatient stays are presented by patient race and ethnicity.

Highlights

• From 2016 to 2019, the population rate of all sepsis-related inpatient stays increased 18.1 percent. With the emergence of COVID-19, the rate increased another 15.2 percent between 2019 and 2021.
• From 2016 to 2021, Black and White non-Hispanic individuals had the highest population rates of sepsis-related inpatient stays compared with Hispanic and Asian and Pacific Islander non-Hispanic individuals.
• For all racial and ethnic groups, population rates of sepsis-related inpatient stays were higher among individuals living in the most socially vulnerable communities than those living in less socially vulnerable communities in 2019 and 2021.
• The average length of a sepsis stay for Asian and Pacific Islander non-Hispanic, Black non-Hispanic, and Hispanic patients was longer than for White non-Hispanic patients in 2021 (9.7, 10.6, and 10.3 vs. 8.6 days, respectively).
• Although the in-hospital mortality rate for sepsis increased for all patients between 2019 and 2021, Hispanic patients had the greatest increase in the in-hospital mortality rate during this period (64.3 percent) compared with patients from other racial and ethnic groups.

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