Socioeconomic factors account for significant portion of association between race/ethnicity, poor outcome
THURSDAY, Oct. 11, 2018 (HealthDay News) — For live-born infants with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) and d-transposition of the great arteries (TGA), Hispanic ethnicity is associated with poor outcome, according to a study published online Oct. 10 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Shabnam Pevyandi, M.D., from the University of California San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital, and colleagues conducted a population-based cohort study using data from the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. They assessed the influence of race/ethnicity and mediating socioeconomic (SE) factors on one-year outcomes for live-born infants with HLHS and TGA (964 and 832 infants, respectively). The outcome was a composite measure of mortality or unexpected hospital readmissions during the first year of life. The analysis included 1,315 patients: 477 non-Hispanic white and 838 Hispanic.
The researchers found that poor outcome was associated with Hispanic ethnicity (crude odds ratio, 1.72). Protective effects were seen for higher maternal education and private insurance (crude odds ratios, 0.5 and 0.65, respectively). Maternal education and insurance status accounted for 33.2 and 27.6 percent, respectively, of the relationship between race/ethnicity and poor outcome in the mediation analysis; infant characteristics played a minor role.
“These findings provide critical preliminary data in creating tools tailored to address specific socioeconomic factors in an attempt to lessen racial and ethnic disparities in congenital heart disease outcomes,” the authors write.
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