Abstract P194: Unmet Social Needs In Youth Referred For Hypertension Disorders Across U.s. Geographic Regions: A Superhero Interim Analysis

Abstract

Objective: Investigate the relationship between geographic region and unmet social needs in youth referred for hypertension disorders.Youth facing health disparities often experience substantial challenges due to adverse social determinants of health, such as those related to the geographic area in which they reside. Understanding the prevalence of unmet social needs by geographic region is vital to advocating for underserved patient populations. Interim cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from The Study of the Epidemiology of Pediatric Hypertension (SUPERHERO), a multisite retrospective Registry using electronic health record data. Inclusion criteria were initial visit for hypertension disorder (identified by ICD-10 code) between 1/1/2015 and 12/31/2022 and age <19 years. Exclusion criteria were ICD-10 code-identified kidney failure on dialysis, kidney transplant, or pregnancy. We recorded U.S. Census geographic Region based on participants’ home address. Our outcome was at least one ICD-10 code for an unmet social need. We used unadjusted generalized linear models.Of the 9,416 participants, mean age was 12 yrs. (SD 5.0) and 29 (0.3%) had at least one unmet social need (Table). Compared to the South, youth from the Northeast had 3.17 times higher risk of unmet social needs (1.08-9.32) and those from the Midwest had 4.71 times higher risk (95% CL 1.76-12.62).We found that youth referred for hypertension disorders from the Northeast and Midwest were more likely to have an unmet social need compared to youth from the South. Ongoing steps include acquiring geocoded data to investigate neighborhood-level metrics and more rigorous unmet social needs data.