Race and socioeconomic disparity in treatment and outcome of traumatic cervical spinal cord injury with fracture: Nationwide Inpatient Sample database, 1998–2009

Disparities in Health Care for Black Patients in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in the United States: A Narrative Review

“…This figure shows disparities in outcomes for Black patients compared to White SCI cohorts. Sources: 43,45,46. ICU = intensive care unit; SCI = spinal cord injury.…”

“…After acute, traumatic SCI, early surgical decompression has repeatedly been shown to improve recovery outcomes 44 . However, even when controlling for other factors, being African American is associated with significantly lower odds of receiving surgery 45 . Length of intensive care unit stays (OR 1.14; 95% CI, 1.08‐1.20), length of initial hospitalization (OR 1.13; 95% CI, 1.08‐1.18), and in‐hospital complications (OR 1.23; 95% CI, 1.11‐1.36) are all significantly increased for Black relative to White patients 46 .…”

Commentary: Do you live in a distressed community? How do you know? What does this mean? What are the risks? How do you get help?

“…Most, but not all, common medical and surgical disorders have worse outcomes in patients from distressed communities ( Table 1). [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] DOES LIVING IN A DISTRESSED COMMUNITY CAUSE WORSE OUTCOMES FROM SURGICAL PROCEDURES? Table 1 suggests that living in a distressed community is associated with worse outcomes from many medical disorders and from surgical interventions.…”

“…1 It will be a refreshing development to see more publications that expand on this issue. There certainly seems to be hope for citizens living in distressed communities, and the fact that this topic appears in front of Cervical spine injury 10 Hip fractures 11 Gastric cancer outcomes 12 Postmastectomy care 13…”

Disparities in Morbidity After Spinal Cord Injury Across Insurance Types in the United States

“…Unfortunately, significant health care disparities exist in the treatment and outcomes of patients living with TSCIs in the United States. [3][4][5] These disparities could be related to health insurance access and supplementary needs that are not covered by the primary payor. The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) usually sets coverage definitions for what is "reasonable and medical necessary" 6 for the diagnosis and treatment of a medical disease and its sequalae.…”