ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, many have flagged racial and ethnic differences in health outcomes in western countries as an urgent global public health priority. Kuwait has a unique demographic profile with two-thirds of the population consisting of non-nationals, most of which are migrant workers. We aimed to explore whether there is a significant difference in health outcomes between non-Kuwaiti and Kuwaiti patients diagnosed with COVID-19. METHODS: We used a prospective COVID-19 registry of all patients (symptomatic and asymptomatic) in Kuwait who tested positive from February 24th to April 20th, 2020, collected from Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah Hospital, the officially-designated COVID-19 healthcare facility in the country. We ran separate logistic regression models comparing non-Kuwaitis to Kuwaitis for death, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and pneumonia. RESULTS: The first 1123 COVID-19 positive patients in Kuwait were all recruited in the study. About 26% were Kuwaitis and 73% were non-Kuwaiti. With adjustments made to age, gender, smoking and selected co-morbidities, non-Kuwaitis had two-fold increase in the odds of death or being admitted to the intensive care unit compared to Kuwaitis (OR: 2.14, 95% CI 1.12-4.32). Non-Kuwaitis had also higher odds of ARDS (OR:2.44, 95% CI 1.23-5.09) and pneumonia (OR: 2.24, 95% CI 1.27-4.12). CONCLUSION: This is the first study to report on COVID-19 outcomes between Kuwaiti and non-Kuwaiti patients. The current pandemic may have amplified the differences of health outcomes among marginalized subpopulations. A number of socioeconomic and environmental factors could explain this health disparity. More research is needed to advance the understanding of policymakers in Kuwait in order to make urgent public health interventions.