Journal Article

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Years of Potential Life Loss Among Patients With Cirrhosis During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States

Gao, Ning, Li, Mei, Lv, Fan, Zhao, Yunyu, Yang, Ju Dong, Samaan, Jamil, Park, Justin, Zhang, Lei, Odden, Michelle C., Nguyen, Mindie H., He, Xinyuan, Liu, Jinli, Ji, Fanpu, Yeo, Yee Hui, Ayoub, Walid S.

2023

Overview

Our aim was to evaluate the impact of race/ethnicity on cirrhosis-related premature death during the COVID-19 pandemic. We obtained cirrhosis-related death data (n = 872,965, January 1, 2012-December 31, 2021) from the US National Vital Statistic System to calculate age-standardized mortality rates and years of potential life lost (YPLL) for premature death aged 25-64 years. Significant racial/ethnic disparity in cirrhosis-related age-standardized mortality rates was noted prepandemic but widened during the pandemic, with the highest excess YPLL for the non-Hispanic American Indian/American Native (2020: 41.0%; 2021: 68.8%) followed by other minority groups (28.7%-45.1%), and the non-Hispanic White the lowest (2020: 20.7%; 2021: 31.6%). COVID-19 constituted >30% of the excess YPLLs for Hispanic and non-Hispanic American Indian/American Native in 2020, compared with 11.1% for non-Hispanic White. Ethnic minorities with cirrhosis experienced a disproportionate excess death and YPLLs in 2020-2021.

• Publisher: Wolters Kluwer,Wolters Kluwer Health Medical Research, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
• Subject: American Indian or Alaska Native / Coronaviruses / COVID-19 / Cultural differences / Ethnicity / Gastroenterology / Hispanic or Latino / Humans / Liver cirrhosis / Liver Cirrhosis - mortality / Minority & ethnic groups / Mortality / Pandemics / United States - epidemiology