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DALLAS – September 21, 2023 – The majority of Americans suffering from heart failure face significant socioeconomic challenges, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
This study American Journal of Cardiologyfound that 8 out of 10 outpatient heart failure patients were adversely affected by two or more social determinants of health (SDOH). These are non-medical factors that can influence health outcomes, such as financial insecurity, lack of access to care, and difficult living conditions. Racial and ethnic minorities and low-income individuals are disproportionately affected.
Andrew Smarsono, MD, MPH, assistant professor of internal medicine in the UT Southwestern Hospital Department of Medicine, is the study leader.
This is the first study to measure the national prevalence of harmful SDOH in patients with heart failure and builds on a similar study of patients at UT Southwestern.
“Heart failure is a chronic medical condition that requires close monitoring, long-term medications and lifestyle changes, but adverse SDOH is a common barrier to optimal management,” study leader Andrew – said Sumarsono, MD, MPH, assistant professor of internal medicine.Department of Hospital Medicine At UT Southwestern. “Our study shows that harmful SDOH is highly common in heart failure patients in the United States, and that they tend to have a greater impact on minority groups. Addressing these harmful SDOH Developing targeted social interventions to improve heart failure could help improve heart failure care at a population level.”
To better understand the prevalence of harmful SDOH in patients with heart failure, UTSW researchers used public data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2018, which collected information from a cross-section of U.S. residents. We compiled the available data. Based on the study’s design, the UTSW team used a weighting procedure that allowed them to apply their results to the entire U.S. population.
The research team identified individuals with a self-reported history of heart failure and analyzed the data by characteristics associated with SDOH as outlined by the American Heart Association, including race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (income, education, unemployment rate). analyzed. Access to care (uninsured rates, no regular place of care). environment (food insecurity, household crowding); Health status (sleep deprivation, physical activity level, disability).
A total of 1,906 individuals were identified in the investigation. They represent an estimated 5.25 million patients with a history of heart failure in the United States. Approximately 81.4% of heart failure patients in the study reported adverse effects from two or more of her SDOH factors.
Lajjaben Patel, MBBS, a postdoctoral fellow in the Cardiometabolic Research Unit at UTSW, is the study’s lead author.
Respondents with lower household incomes had significantly higher rates of harmful SDOH than respondents with higher incomes, with significantly higher rates of harmful SDOH in education, uninsured, food insecurity, household crowding, sleep deprivation, and ethnic/racial differences in SDOH reporting. Significant differences were seen.
For example, food insecurity is twice as prevalent among Black and Hispanic respondents compared to White patients, and minority patients report much higher rates of household crowding (Hispanic (11 times more likely among respondents and 4 times more likely among black respondents).
“Millions of Americans suffer from heart failure, where the heart muscle weakens and is unable to pump blood properly,” said UTSW’s Cardiometabolic Research Unit postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the study. said Lajjaben Patel (MBBS). “But with the right care and support, you can successfully manage your condition. The next step in our research will be to identify the social determinants that have the greatest impact on clinical outcomes. , to test specific interventions to determine their benefit.”
Also contributing to this research from UTSW was fourth-year medical student Nidhish Lokesh, BS.
About UT Southwestern Medical Center
UT Southwestern is one of the nation’s leading academic medical centers, combining pioneering biomedical research with outstanding clinical care and education. The institution’s faculty have won six Nobel Prizes, including 26 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 19 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators. Our more than 2,900 full-time faculty members are responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and are committed to rapidly translating science-driven research into new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide care to more than 120,000 inpatients, more than 360,000 emergency patients, and oversee nearly 5 million outpatient visits annually in more than 80 specialties.
