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Socio-economic variation in CT scanning in Northern England, 1990-2002

BACKGROUND: Socio-economic status is known to influence health throughout life. In childhood, studies have shown increased injury rates in more deprived settings. Socio-economic status may therefore be related to rates of certain medical procedures, such as computed tomography (CT) scans. This study...

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Autores principales: Pearce, Mark S, Salotti, Jane A, McHugh, Kieran, Pyo Kim, Kwang, Craft, Alan W, Lubin, Jay, Ron, Elaine, Parker, Louise
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3276411/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22283843
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-12-24
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author Pearce, Mark S
Salotti, Jane A
McHugh, Kieran
Pyo Kim, Kwang
Craft, Alan W
Lubin, Jay
Ron, Elaine
Parker, Louise
author_facet Pearce, Mark S
Salotti, Jane A
McHugh, Kieran
Pyo Kim, Kwang
Craft, Alan W
Lubin, Jay
Ron, Elaine
Parker, Louise
author_sort Pearce, Mark S
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Socio-economic status is known to influence health throughout life. In childhood, studies have shown increased injury rates in more deprived settings. Socio-economic status may therefore be related to rates of certain medical procedures, such as computed tomography (CT) scans. This study aimed to assess socio-economic variation among young people having CT scans in Northern England between 1990 and 2002 inclusive. METHODS: Electronic data were obtained from Radiology Information Systems of all nine National Health Service hospital Trusts in the region. CT scan data, including sex, date of scan, age at scan, number and type of scans were assessed in relation to quintiles of Townsend deprivation scores, obtained from linkage of postcodes with census data, using χ(2 )tests and Spearman rank correlations. RESULTS: During the study period, 39,676 scans were recorded on 21,089 patients, with 38,007 scans and 19,485 patients (11344 male and 8132 female) linkable to Townsend scores. The overall distributions of both scans and patients by quintile of Townsend deprivation scores were significantly different to the distributions of Townsend scores from the census wards included in the study (p < 0.0001). There was a significant association between type of scan and deprivation quintile (p < 0.0001), primarily due to the higher proportions of head scans in the three most deprived quintiles, and slightly higher proportions of chest scans and abdomen and pelvis scans in the least deprived groups. There was also a significant association (p < 0.0001) between the patient's age at the time of the CT scan and Townsend deprivation quintiles, with slightly increasing proportions of younger children with increasing deprivation. A similar association with age (p < 0.0001) was seen when restricting the data to include only the first scan of each patient. The number of scans per patient was also associated with Townsend deprivation quintiles (p = 0.014). CONCLUSIONS: Social inequalities exist in the numbers of young people undergoing CT scans with those from deprived areas more likely to do so. This may reflect the rates of injuries in these individuals and implies that certain groups within the population may receive higher radiation doses than others due to medical procedures.
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spelling pubmed-32764112012-02-10 Socio-economic variation in CT scanning in Northern England, 1990-2002 Pearce, Mark S Salotti, Jane A McHugh, Kieran Pyo Kim, Kwang Craft, Alan W Lubin, Jay Ron, Elaine Parker, Louise BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: Socio-economic status is known to influence health throughout life. In childhood, studies have shown increased injury rates in more deprived settings. Socio-economic status may therefore be related to rates of certain medical procedures, such as computed tomography (CT) scans. This study aimed to assess socio-economic variation among young people having CT scans in Northern England between 1990 and 2002 inclusive. METHODS: Electronic data were obtained from Radiology Information Systems of all nine National Health Service hospital Trusts in the region. CT scan data, including sex, date of scan, age at scan, number and type of scans were assessed in relation to quintiles of Townsend deprivation scores, obtained from linkage of postcodes with census data, using χ(2 )tests and Spearman rank correlations. RESULTS: During the study period, 39,676 scans were recorded on 21,089 patients, with 38,007 scans and 19,485 patients (11344 male and 8132 female) linkable to Townsend scores. The overall distributions of both scans and patients by quintile of Townsend deprivation scores were significantly different to the distributions of Townsend scores from the census wards included in the study (p < 0.0001). There was a significant association between type of scan and deprivation quintile (p < 0.0001), primarily due to the higher proportions of head scans in the three most deprived quintiles, and slightly higher proportions of chest scans and abdomen and pelvis scans in the least deprived groups. There was also a significant association (p < 0.0001) between the patient's age at the time of the CT scan and Townsend deprivation quintiles, with slightly increasing proportions of younger children with increasing deprivation. A similar association with age (p < 0.0001) was seen when restricting the data to include only the first scan of each patient. The number of scans per patient was also associated with Townsend deprivation quintiles (p = 0.014). CONCLUSIONS: Social inequalities exist in the numbers of young people undergoing CT scans with those from deprived areas more likely to do so. This may reflect the rates of injuries in these individuals and implies that certain groups within the population may receive higher radiation doses than others due to medical procedures. BioMed Central 2012-01-27 /pmc/articles/PMC3276411/ /pubmed/22283843 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-12-24 Text en Copyright ©2012 Pearce et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Pearce, Mark S
Salotti, Jane A
McHugh, Kieran
Pyo Kim, Kwang
Craft, Alan W
Lubin, Jay
Ron, Elaine
Parker, Louise
Socio-economic variation in CT scanning in Northern England, 1990-2002
title Socio-economic variation in CT scanning in Northern England, 1990-2002
title_full Socio-economic variation in CT scanning in Northern England, 1990-2002
title_fullStr Socio-economic variation in CT scanning in Northern England, 1990-2002
title_full_unstemmed Socio-economic variation in CT scanning in Northern England, 1990-2002
title_short Socio-economic variation in CT scanning in Northern England, 1990-2002
title_sort socio-economic variation in ct scanning in northern england, 1990-2002
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3276411/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22283843
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-12-24
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