Age and gender distribution of each population.

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 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.