Impact of Socioeconomic Status on Delivery System Effectiveness

Abstract

The socioeconomic status (SES) component of the Social Vulnerability Index ranks US counties based on the SES of county residents and was used to evaluate the impact of SES on the performance of the health care delivery system. Using Medicare fee-for-service data, the performance of the health care delivery system was evaluated based on population measures such as per capita hospital admissions, quality of care measures such as surgical mortality, postacute care measures such as readmissions, and service volume measures such as posthospitalization nursing home and rehabilitation admissions. Substantial differences in delivery system performance across SES populations were observed.

How Do Social Factors Impact Recommendation for Surgery?

“…For those who are familiar with other studies that report data demonstrating the effect of patient demographics on health care, the reported effect of higher social deprivation on treatment in this study may not be a surprise. It has been well documented that patient socioeconomic status negatively affects access to care, quality of care, and outcomes 1 .…”