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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Crit Care Med. Sep 9, 2025; 14(3): 106387
Published online Sep 9, 2025. doi: 10.5492/wjccm.v14.i3.106387
Published online Sep 9, 2025. doi: 10.5492/wjccm.v14.i3.106387
Racial differences in outcomes among patients with septic shock: A national cohort study
Song-Peng Ang, Department of Internal Medicine, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, Toms River, NJ 08755, United States
Jia-Ee Chia, Department of Internal Medicine, Texas Tech University Health Science Center, El Paso, TX 79912, United States
Jose Iglesias, Department of Critical Care, Community Medical Center, Toms River, NJ 08757, United States
Jose Iglesias, Department of Nephrology, Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, Nutley, NJ 07110, United States
Jose Iglesias, Department of Internal Medicine, Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, Nutley, NJ 07110, United States
Co-first authors: Song-Peng Ang and Jia-Ee Chia.
Author contributions: Ang SP and Iglesias J conceptualize and designed the study; Ang SP and Iglesias J were involved in writing and reviewing the manuscript; Chia JE performed data acquisition, analysis, interpretation and visualization; Iglesias J supervised the study; All authors provided final approval and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of work ensuring integrity and accuracy.
Institutional review board statement: Given the use of this deidentified, limited dataset, ethical approval or institutional review board approval is not required according to HCUP data use agreement.
Informed consent statement: The NIS dataset does not include direct patient identifiers and adheres strictly to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule. Given the use of deidentified dataset, informed consent is not required. However, all analyses were conducted in accordance with ethical research principles, institutional guidelines, and the HCUP Data Use Agreement to ensure the protection of patient confidentiality.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare that they have no competing interests.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: Data used in this article are subjected to third party restrictions and can be obtained upon applying at https://hcup-us.ahrq.gov/db/nation/nis/nisdbdocumentation.jsp.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jose Iglesias, FACP, FASN, Associate Professor, Department of Critical Care, Community Medical Center, 99 W Rt 37, Toms River, NJ 08757, United States.
Received: February 24, 2025
Revised: April 3, 2025
Accepted: May 7, 2025
Published online: September 9, 2025
Processing time: 144 Days and 7.5 Hours
Revised: April 3, 2025
Accepted: May 7, 2025
Published online: September 9, 2025
Processing time: 144 Days and 7.5 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Non-Hispanic Black (NHB) and Hispanic patients faced higher adjusted in-hospital mortality compared to Non-Hispanic White patients, primarily driven by higher incidence of in-hospital complications. Mortality increased sharply during 2020–2021, particularly among Hispanic patients. NHB patients had the longest hospital stays, while "Other" racial groups incurred the highest costs. Structural inequities in healthcare access and pandemic-related stressors likely contributed to worsening outcomes in marginalized groups, emphasizing the need for targeted interventions.