Disparities in Population-Level Socio-Economic Factors Are Associated with Disparities in Preoperative Clinical Risk Factors in Children.

Abstract

African American children are more than twice as likely as white American children to die after surgery, and have increased risk for longer hospital stays, post-surgical complications, and higher hospital costs. Prior research into disparities in pediatric surgery outcomes has not considered interactions between patient-level Clinical Risk Factors (CRFs) and population-level Social, Economic, and Environmental Factors (SEEFs) primarily due to the lack of integrated data sets. In this study, we analyze correlations between SEEFs and CRFs and correlations between CRFs and surgery outcomes. We used a dataset from a cohort of 460 surgical cases who underwent surgery at a children's hospital in Memphis, Tennessee in the United States. The analysis was conducted on 23 CRFs, 9 surgery outcomes, and 10 SEEFs and demographic variables. Our results show that population-level SEEFs are significantly associated with both patient-level CRFs and surgery outcomes. These findings may be important in the improved understanding of health disparities in pediatric surgery outcomes.