Differences in Outpatient Health Care Utilization 12 Months after COVID-19 Infection by Race/Ethnicity and Community Social Vulnerability

Ensuring access to high-quality outpatient care is an important strategy to improve COVID-19 outcomes, reduce social inequities, and prevent potentially expensive complications of disease. This study assesses the equity of health care response to COVID-19 by examining outpatient care utilization by...

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Autores principales: Roth, Sarah E., Govier, Diana J., Marsi, Katherine, Cohen-Cline, Hannah
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8949439/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35329165
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063481
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author Roth, Sarah E.
Govier, Diana J.
Marsi, Katherine
Cohen-Cline, Hannah
author_facet Roth, Sarah E.
Govier, Diana J.
Marsi, Katherine
Cohen-Cline, Hannah
author_sort Roth, Sarah E.
collection PubMed
description Ensuring access to high-quality outpatient care is an important strategy to improve COVID-19 outcomes, reduce social inequities, and prevent potentially expensive complications of disease. This study assesses the equity of health care response to COVID-19 by examining outpatient care utilization by factors at the individual and community levels in the 12 months prior to and following COVID-19 diagnosis. Employing a retrospective, observational cohort design, we analyzed electronic health record data from a sample of 11,326 adults diagnosed with COVID-19 between March and July 2020. We used two-part models to estimate changes in use of primary and specialty care by race/ethnicity and community social vulnerability in the year before and after COVID-19 diagnosis. Our findings showed that while overall probability and counts of primary and specialty care visits increased following a positive COVID-19 diagnosis, disparities in care utilization by race/ethnicity and living in a socially vulnerable community persisted in the year that followed. These findings reiterate the need for strategic approaches to improve access to and utilization of care among those diagnosed with COVID-19, especially for individuals who are traditionally undeserved by the health system. Our findings also highlight the importance of systematic approaches for addressing social inequity in health care.
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spelling pubmed-89494392022-03-26 Differences in Outpatient Health Care Utilization 12 Months after COVID-19 Infection by Race/Ethnicity and Community Social Vulnerability Roth, Sarah E. Govier, Diana J. Marsi, Katherine Cohen-Cline, Hannah Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Ensuring access to high-quality outpatient care is an important strategy to improve COVID-19 outcomes, reduce social inequities, and prevent potentially expensive complications of disease. This study assesses the equity of health care response to COVID-19 by examining outpatient care utilization by factors at the individual and community levels in the 12 months prior to and following COVID-19 diagnosis. Employing a retrospective, observational cohort design, we analyzed electronic health record data from a sample of 11,326 adults diagnosed with COVID-19 between March and July 2020. We used two-part models to estimate changes in use of primary and specialty care by race/ethnicity and community social vulnerability in the year before and after COVID-19 diagnosis. Our findings showed that while overall probability and counts of primary and specialty care visits increased following a positive COVID-19 diagnosis, disparities in care utilization by race/ethnicity and living in a socially vulnerable community persisted in the year that followed. These findings reiterate the need for strategic approaches to improve access to and utilization of care among those diagnosed with COVID-19, especially for individuals who are traditionally undeserved by the health system. Our findings also highlight the importance of systematic approaches for addressing social inequity in health care. MDPI 2022-03-15 /pmc/articles/PMC8949439/ /pubmed/35329165 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063481 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Roth, Sarah E.
Govier, Diana J.
Marsi, Katherine
Cohen-Cline, Hannah
Differences in Outpatient Health Care Utilization 12 Months after COVID-19 Infection by Race/Ethnicity and Community Social Vulnerability
title Differences in Outpatient Health Care Utilization 12 Months after COVID-19 Infection by Race/Ethnicity and Community Social Vulnerability
title_full Differences in Outpatient Health Care Utilization 12 Months after COVID-19 Infection by Race/Ethnicity and Community Social Vulnerability
title_fullStr Differences in Outpatient Health Care Utilization 12 Months after COVID-19 Infection by Race/Ethnicity and Community Social Vulnerability
title_full_unstemmed Differences in Outpatient Health Care Utilization 12 Months after COVID-19 Infection by Race/Ethnicity and Community Social Vulnerability
title_short Differences in Outpatient Health Care Utilization 12 Months after COVID-19 Infection by Race/Ethnicity and Community Social Vulnerability
title_sort differences in outpatient health care utilization 12 months after covid-19 infection by race/ethnicity and community social vulnerability
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8949439/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35329165
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063481
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