UC Davis

INTRODUCTION: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has historically been seen as predominantly affecting non-Hispanic Whites (NHW). Hispanics are the largest minority group in the USA, yet they remain grossly underrepresented in studies of IBD. With this study, we aimed to better understand the epidemiology of hospitalized Hispanic patients with IBD in the US. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study utilizing the National Inpatient Sample, the largest publicly available all-payer inpatient care database in the United States. We compared demographics, hospitalization characteristics, clinical outcomes, and year-to-year trends from 2016 to 2020 in Hispanic and NHW with a primary diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease, Crohns disease, or ulcerative colitis. RESULTS: NHWs hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of IBD had significantly higher rates of hospitalization than Hispanics (122.67 vs 71.12, P < 0.01). While hospitalized Hispanics with IBD are more likely to be in the lowest quartile for household income (31.6% vs 19.3%, P < 0.01), have a younger median age (37.0 vs 45.0, P < 0.01), and be uninsured (4.3% vs 8.8%, P < 0.01) compared to NHW. Length of admission was similar, yet NHWs had higher rates of mortality (0.3% vs 0.2%, P = 0.01), while total charges for hospitalizations were significantly higher for Hispanic patients (P < 0.01). DISCUSSION: To our knowledge, this is one of the largest US-based studies of Hispanics with IBD. Our findings suggest that among hospitalized IBD patients, Hispanics are more likely to be younger, uninsured, have a lower household income, and are less likely to undergo surgery while having higher hospital charges.