IMPORTANCEIt is unknown how much the mortality of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) depends on the hospital that cares for them, and whether COVID-19 hospital mortality rates are improving.OBJECTIVE To identify variation in COVID-19 mortality rates and how those rates have changed over the first months of the pandemic. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTSThis cohort study assessed 38 517 adults who were admitted with COVID-19 to 955 US hospitals from January 1, 2020, to June 30, 2020, and a subset of 27 801 adults (72.2%) who were admitted to 398 of these hospitals that treated at least 10 patients with COVID-19 during 2 periods (January 1 to April 30, 2020, and May 1 to June 30, 2020).EXPOSURES Hospital characteristics, including size, the number of intensive care unit beds, academic and profit status, hospital setting, and regional characteristics, including COVID-19 case burden. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURESThe primary outcome was the hospital's risk-standardized event rate (RSER) of 30-day in-hospital mortality or referral to hospice adjusted for patient-level characteristics, including demographic data, comorbidities, community or nursing facility admission source, and time since January 1, 2020. We examined whether hospital characteristics were associated with RSERs or their change over time. RESULTSThe mean (SD) age among participants (18 888 men [49.0%]) was 70.2 (15.5) years. The mean (SD) hospital-level RSER for the 955 hospitals was 11.8% (2.5%). The mean RSER in the worst-performing quintile of hospitals was 15.65% compared with 9.06% in the best-performing quintile (absolute difference, 6.59 percentage points; 95% CI, 6.38%-6.80%; P < .001). Mean RSERs in all but 1 of the 398 hospitals improved; 376 (94%) improved by at least 25%. The overall mean (SD) RSER declined from 16.6% (4.0%) to 9.3% (2.1%). The absolute difference in rates of mortality or referral to hospice between the worst-and best-performing quintiles of hospitals decreased from 10.54 percentage points (95% CI, 10.03%-11.05%; P < .001) to 5.59 percentage points (95% CI, 5.33%-5.86%; P < .001). Higher county-level COVID-19 case rates were associated with worse RSERs, and case rate declines were associated with improvement in RSERs. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCEOver the first months of the pandemic, COVID-19 mortality rates in this cohort of US hospitals declined. Hospitals did better when the prevalence of COVID-19 in their surrounding communities was lower.

IMPORTANCE Black patients hospitalized with COVID-19 may have worse outcomes than White patients because of excess individual risk or because Black patients are disproportionately cared for in hospitals with worse outcomes for all.OBJECTIVES To examine differences in COVID-19 hospital mortality rates between Black and White patients and to assess whether the mortality rates reflect differences in patient characteristics by race or by the hospitals to which Black and White patients are admitted.

Psychiatric illness confers significant risk for severe COVID-19 morbidity and mortality; identifying psychiatric risk factors for vaccine hesitancy is critical to mitigating risk in this population. This study examined the prevalence of vaccine hesitancy among those with psychiatric illness and the associations between psychiatric morbidity and vaccine hesitancy. Data came from electronic health records and a patient survey obtained from 14,365 patients at a group medical practice between February and May, 2021. Logistic regression was used to calculate odds for vaccine hesitancy adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics and physical comorbidity. Of 14,365 participants 1,761 (12.3%) participants reported vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy was significantly more prevalent among participants with substance use (29.6%), attention deficit and hyperactivity (23.3%), posttraumatic stress (23.1%), bipolar (18.0%), generalized anxiety (16.5%), major depressive (16.1%), other anxiety (15.5%), and tobacco use disorders (18.6%), and those previously infected with COVID-19 (19.8%) compared to participants without these disorders. After adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics and physical comorbidities, substance use disorders and tobacco use were significantly associated with increased odds for vaccine hesitancy and bipolar disorder was significantly inversely associated with vaccine hesitancy. Interventions to improve uptake in these populations may be warranted.

This cohort study examines trends in care for eating disorders and other behavioral health conditions before and during the COVID-19 pandemic among commercially insured individuals in the US.