In November, Truveta Research shared their findings on racial disparities in treatment and hospitalization during different periods of time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, the peer-reviewed paper, “Racial inequality in COVID treatment and in-hospital length of stay in the US over time” is published in Frontiers in Public Health, in their section on Life-Course Epidemiology and Social Inequalities in Health. Truveta Research used Truveta Studio as the groundwork for their data in this research paper.
Researchers face frustrating months-long delays to their work — from assessing the feasibility of generating a representative population for analysis, to the time to create a secure data analytics infrastructure. Fragmented and limited tools slow research, drive-up costs, and limit transparency and trust in study conclusions.
Truveta Studio brings together unprecedented health data and analytics for researchers to study patient care and outcomes with any condition, drug, or medical device. Truveta Studio is the first integrated solution that combines data and analytics to accelerate learning in real time. No other system has been designed to study patient care and outcomes at this scale. Both the completeness of the data and the speed of accessing it cut the typical waiting and research time down from months to days.
Truveta Research Shares Views on Published Health Equity Study
“The COVID-19 pandemic has affected underrepresented and minoritized communities in a variety of ways. This study is very important to show that not only are marginalized communities at a greater risk for COVID-19, but they were less likely to get potentially life-saving treatment. The closing of the gap we saw undoubtedly could have been due to actions by health systems to be conscious of removing disparities but there is still much more work to be done. We are excited to stay at the forefront.”
— Dr. Charlotte Baker, DrPH, MPH, CPH; Director of Epidemiology at Truveta
“This was an especially meaningful project for us because we were able to use the power of Truveta Studio to contribute to the study of health inequality in COVID treatment. This pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of our systems and highlighted longstanding inequalities in health and healthcare in this country. Our hope is that this study will further highlight where improvement is possible and what those improvements might be.”
— Dr. Nick Stucky, MD, PhD; VP of Research at Truveta; Infectious Disease Physician & Researcher, Providence Portland Medical Center
Research Abstract
Introduction: Demonstrated health inequalities persist in the United States. SARS-CoV-2 (COVID) has been no exception, with access to treatment and hospitalization differing across race or ethnic groups. Here, we aim to assess differences in treatment with remdesivir and hospital length of stay across the four waves of the pandemic.
Materials and methods: Using a subset of the Truveta data, we examine the odds ratio (OR) of in-hospital remdesivir treatment and risk ratio (RR) of in-hospital length of stay between Black or African American (Black) to White patients. We adjusted for confounding factors, such as age, sex, and comorbidity status.
Results: There were statistically significant lower rates of remdesivir treatment and longer in-hospital length of stay comparing Black patients to White patients early in the pandemic (OR for treatment: 0.88, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.80, 0.96; RR for length of stay: 1.17, CI: 1.06, 1.21). Rates became close to parity between groups as the pandemic progressed.
Conclusion: While inpatient remdesivir treatment rates increased and length of stay decreased over the beginning course of the pandemic, there are still inequalities in patient care.
Read the entire original research paper in Frontiers in Public Health.
About Truveta
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