COVID‐19 and dementia: Analyses of risk, disparity, and outcomes from electronic health records in the US

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec><jats:title>Introduction</jats:title><jats:p>At present, there is limited data on the risks, disparity, and outcomes for COVID‐19 in patients with dementia in the United States.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods</jats:title><jats:p>This is a retrospective case‐control analysis of patient electronic health records (EHRs) of 61.9 million adult and senior patients (age ≥ 18 years) in the United States up to August 21, 2020.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>Patients with dementia were at increased risk for COVID‐19 compared to patients without dementia (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]: 2.00 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.94–2.06], <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < .001), with the strongest effect for vascular dementia (AOR: 3.17 [95% CI, 2.97–3.37], <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < .001), followed by presenile dementia (AOR: 2.62 [95% CI, 2.28–3.00], <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < .001), Alzheimer's disease (AOR: 1.86 [95% CI, 1.77–1.96], <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < .001), senile dementia (AOR: 1.99 [95% CI, 1.86–2.13], <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < .001) and post‐traumatic dementia (AOR: 1.67 [95% CI, 1.51–1.86] <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < .001). Blacks with dementia had higher risk of COVID‐19 than Whites (AOR: 2.86 [95% CI, 2.67–3.06], <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < .001). The 6‐month mortality and hospitalization risks in patients with dementia and COVID‐19 were 20.99% and 59.26%, respectively.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Discussion</jats:title><jats:p>These findings highlight the need to protect patients with dementia as part of the strategy to control the COVID‐19 pandemic.</jats:p></jats:sec>