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...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2022
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8949439 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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