Why women are admitted to the hospital

Research Activities, May 2010, No. 357

Women accounted for nearly 60 percent of the 39.4 million admissions to U.S. hospitals in 2007, according to the latest data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The leading reasons that women are admitted to the hospital are for pregnancy and childbirth. About 5 million of the 23.2 million hospital admissions for women were related to delivery.

Nearly 2 million hospital stays for women involved cardiovascular disease, the number one killer of women. They included treatment of coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, heart attacks, atrial fibrillation and other types of irregular heart beat, and chest pain with no determined cause. Other leading reasons why women were hospitalized in 2007 included:

• Pneumonia, 608,000 admissions.
• Osteoarthritis, 498,000 admissions.
• Depression and bipolar disorder, 442,000 admissions.
• Urinary tract infection, 383,000 admissions.
• Blood infection (septicemia), 354,000 admissions.
• Skin infections, 282,000 admissions.

These findings are based on data from HCUP Facts and Figures 2007, which highlights the latest data from the 2007 Nationwide Inpatient Sample, a part of AHRQ's Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). You can view the report at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/factsandfigures/2007/TOC_2007.jsp.

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