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Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a devastating disease of the newborn. We hypothesized that patient and institution level factors lead to NEC-related outcome disparities.

We analyzed the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development database for the years 1999–2004. We selected NEC-specific ICD-9-CM diagnosis and procedure codes. Mortality rate was the primary outcome measure, and length of stay was used a secondary end-point. We stratified the data by birth weight, gender, race/ethnicity, treatment, median household income, insurance status, admission type (inborn or outborn), and NICU levels.

We identified 3328 infants with NEC (incidence of 1 per 1000 live births). Overall mortality within the NEC cohort was 12.5% (13.4 deaths per 100,000 live births). Male or Hispanic neonates were less likely to survive. Socioeconomic factors, including …