Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status Tied to Mortality for Neurologic Conditions

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 15, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with 30-day mortality for common neurologic conditions, according to a study published online Feb. 15 in Neurology.

Jay B. Lusk, from the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, and colleagues examined the association between neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation and 30-day mortality and readmission after hospitalization for neurologic conditions. Data were included for patients older than 65 years hospitalized with the following diagnosis-related groups: multiple sclerosis and cerebellar ataxia, stroke, degenerative nervous system disorders, epilepsy, traumatic coma, and nontraumatic coma.

A total of 905,784 patients were included in the mortality analysis and 915,993 were included in the readmission analysis after exclusions. The researchers found that for all disease categories except multiple sclerosis, patients from low-SES neighborhoods had higher 30-day mortality rates compared with those from high-SES neighborhoods, after adjustment for age, sex, race/ethnicity, comorbidity burden, and individual SES, with magnitudes of effect varying from an adjusted odds ratio of 2.46 to 1.23 for the nontraumatic coma and stroke groups, respectively. No significant differences were seen in readmission for any of the groups after adjustment.

"Strategies to improve health equity should explicitly consider the effect of neighborhood environments on a person's health," a coauthor said in a statement. "Health systems could use the results of our study to implement interventions to improve outcomes and health equity for people living in disadvantaged neighborhoods."

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