ArticlePloS one2025
Universal health care delivery mitigates socioeconomic-related risk for adverse outcomes in hospitalised patients: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia.
Article in PloS one, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundInternationally, socioeconomic disadvantage is related to severe outcomes of COVID-19. We investigated the impact of socioeconomic disadvantage on infection rates, hospitalisation, and in-hospital outcomes for COVID-19 with standardised medical care.
methodsThis retrospective cross-sectional study included SARS-CoV-2 PCR-confirmed patients ≥18 years, admitted to a major public hospital between January 2020 and December 2021. Severe COVID-19 outcomes were defined by a composite outcome of in-hospital death or other critical complications. A generalised linear regression model of demographic features, co-existing conditions, and socioeconomic status was used to determine the risks of the composite outcome.
resultsOf 797,343 individuals ≥18 years in the health district, 50,906 (6.4%) were PCR-positive, and 1,962 were hospitalised. Compared with the whole health district population, infected individuals were younger (median [interquartile range] age 35 [25-48] years vs 42 [31-58] years) and from areas with the greatest socioeconomic disadvantage (34.4% vs 20%; both p < 0.0001). Hospitalised patients were older, with more females compared to the PCR-positive group (46 years [33-61], 53.5%, respectively; p < 0.001), and 51.2% were from postcodes with greatest socioeconomic disadvantage (p < 0.0001). The composite outcome occurred in 11.5%, with an in-hospital mortality of 3.8%. Higher risk of the composite outcome was observed in males (OR 1.72, 95% CI [1.26-2.42], p < 0.001), patients aged ≥ 65 years (OR 6.96, [3.3-14.6], p < 0.001), those with ≥ 4 comorbidities (OR 2.67, [1.54-4.63], p < 0.001), and unvaccinated patients (OR 1.57, [1.05-2.38], p < 0.05). The risk of composite outcome did not increase with socioeconomic disadvantage (OR 0.97, [0.68, 1.42], p = 0.64).
conclusionIn the absence of capacity restraints, socioeconomic disadvantage was not associated with severe in-hospital outcomes in a well-resourced care environment despite increased rates of infection and hospitalisation. This highlights the impact of universally accessible, standardised, protocolised, high-quality in-hospital care in reducing the risk of adverse in-hospital outcomes in socioeconomically disadvantaged patients.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.