ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND AIM: The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted adverse outcomes in Asian, Black, and ethnic minority groups. More research is required to explore underlying ethnic health inequalities. In this study, we aim to examine pre-COVID ethnic inequalities more generally through healthcare utilisation to contextualise underlying inequalities that were present before the pandemic. DESIGN: This was an ecological study exploring all admissions to NHS hospitals in England from 2017 to 2020. METHODS: The primary outcomes were admission rates within ethnic groups. Secondary outcomes included age-specific and age-standardised admission rates. Sub-analysis of admission rates across an index of multiple deprivation (IMD) deciles was also performed to contextualise the impact of socioeconomic differences amongst ethnic categories. Results were presented as a relative ratio (RR) with 95% confidence intervals. RESULTS: Age-standardised admission rates were higher in Asian (RR 1.40 [1.38-1.41] in 2019) and Black (RR 1.37 [1.37-1.38]) and lower in Mixed groups (RR 0.91 [0.90-0.91]) relative to White. There was significant missingness or misassignment of ethnicity in NHS admissions: with 11.7% of admissions having an unknown/not-stated ethnicity assignment and 'other' ethnicity being significantly over-represented. Admission rates did not mirror the degree of deprivation across all ethnic categories. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows Black and Asian ethnic groups have higher admission rates compared to White across all age groups and when standardised for age. There is evidence of incomplete and misidentification of ethnicity assignment in NHS admission records, which may introduce bias to work on these datasets. Differences in admission rates across individual ethnic categories cannot solely be explained by socioeconomic status. Further work is needed to identify ethnicity-specific factors of these inequalities to allow targeted interventions at the local level.
