After Cardiac Arrest in Hospital, Blacks Show Poorer Outcomes

That health disparities exist between black and white patients during their hospital stays will come as no surprise to clinicians. New research on in-hospital cardiac arrest, however, shows that these differences in outcomes can persist for years, with black patients being more than 10% less likely to survive at 1, 3, and 5 years after discharge.

Racial disparities in short-term survival after in-hospital cardiac arrest have been evaluated in previous studies, but Lena Chen, MD, MS (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), and colleagues wanted to see what happens over the long term and what might be driving any differences.