Patient socioeconomic status is an independent predictor of operative mortality.
Journal Article (Journal Article)
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of patient socioeconomic status (SES) on operative mortality within the context of associated factors. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: Outcomes disparities among surgical patients are a significant concern. Previous studies have suggested that the correlation between SES and outcomes is attributable to other patient- or hospital-level explanatory factors such as race or hospital wealth. These studies have typically focused on a single explanation for the existence of these inequalities. METHODS: Analyzing more than 1 million records of the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, we used multimodel inference to evaluate the effects of socioeconomic predictors on surgical mortality. RESULTS: Using univariate and multivariate logistic regression, we find that patient's SES is a strong predictor of operative mortality. Multivariate regressions incorporated many additional hospital- and patient-level covariates. A single-level increase in patient SES results in a mean decrease in operative mortality risk of 7.1%. CONCLUSIONS: SES at the level of the individual patient has a statistically significant effect on operative mortality. Mortality is greatest among patients in the lowest socioeconomic strata. The effect of patient SES on mortality is not mitigated by other explanatory hospital- or patient-level factors.
Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Bennett, KM; Scarborough, JE; Pappas, TN; Kepler, TB
Published Date
- September 2010
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 252 / 3
Start / End Page
- 552 - 557
PubMed ID
- 20739856
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1528-1140
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1097/SLA.0b013e3181f2ac64
Language
- eng
Conference Location
- United States