Race-ethnicity and Poverty after Spinal Cord Injury

OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to examine the relationship between race-ethnicity and poverty status after spinal cord injury (SCI). STUDY DESIGN: Secondary analysis of existing data. SETTING: A large specialty hospital in the southeastern United States (US). METHODS: Participants were 2,043 adults with traumatic SCI in the US. Poverty status was measured using criteria from the US Census Bureau. RESULTS: Whereas only 14% of non-Hispanic White participants were below the poverty level, 41.3% of non-Hispanic Blacks were in poverty. Logistic regression with three different models identified several significant predictors of poverty including marital status, years of education, level of education, age, and employment status. Non-Hispanic Blacks had 2.75 greater odds of living in poverty after controlling for other factors, including education and employment. CONCLUSIONS: We may need to consider quality of education and employment to better understand the elevated risk of poverty among non-Hispanic Blacks in the US.