SE is a neurological emergency with high mortality rate reaching 20%. Although there is an increasing number of research about SE which brought about a better subsequent knowledge and understanding of the pathology. Yet, the mortality is still high.

Using the multiple cause of death database, we identified all patients who died of SE using the International Classification of Diseases, 10^th revision code G41. We used crude mortality rates from the CDC WONDER database. Poisson regression models were run to assess mortality. All tests were two-tailed and ps < .05 considered significant. 

A total of 13,399 SE deaths (underlying cause of death) were identified between 1999-2018 with an average crude mortality of 3.02 (SD = 1.33) per 1 million persons (PMP). Mortality rates were greater for Black patients (M = 3.6, SD = 1.1 PMP) than for White patients (M = 2.0, SD = 0.7 PMP), p < .001, and were greater for females (M = 3.2, SD = 1.4 PMP) than for males (M = 2.8, SD = 1.2 PMP), p < .001. Year was also significant such that the rates of crude deaths increased over time, p < .001. Compared to 1999, crude deaths consistently increased throughout 2011, p = .002, 2012, p < .001, 2013, p < .001, 2014, p < .001, 2015, p < .001, 2016, p < .001, 2017, p < .001, and 2018, p < .001.

Racial disparities were noticed among deaths from SE with average mortality rates for Black patients being 1.8x those of White patients. Further studies are required to investigate the reasons behind this difference.