Nearly 4% of publicly insured U.S. children hospitalized with sepsis that began outside a hospital died within 30 days, according to a national study published in Pediatrics. Researchers counted 1,562 deaths among 40,524 community-acquired sepsis episodes from 2021 to 2023.
The toll fell unevenly. Children with complex chronic conditions died at a rate of 4.9%, compared with 1.3% for children without those conditions, and adjusted death rates differed sharply from one region of the country to another.
