Disparities in Geographic Access to Cardiac Rehabilitation in Los Angeles County

BACKGROUND: Exercise‐based cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is known to reduce morbidity and mortality for patients with cardiac conditions. Sociodemographic disparities in accessing CR persist and could be related to the distance between where patients live and where CR facilities are located. Our objective is to determine the association between sociodemographic characteristics and geographic proximity to CR facilities. METHODS AND RESULTS: We identified actively operating CR facilities across Los Angeles County and used multivariable Poisson regression to examine the association between sociodemographic characteristics of residential proximity to the nearest CR facility. We also calculated the proportion of residents per area lacking geographic proximity to CR facilities across sociodemographic characteristics, from which we calculated prevalence ratios. We found that racial and ethnic minorities, compared with non‐Hispanic White individuals, more frequently live ≥5 miles from a CR facility. The greatest geographic disparity was seen for non‐Hispanic Black individuals, with a 2.73 (95% CI, 2.66–2.79) prevalence ratio of living at least 5 miles from a CR facility. Notably, the municipal region with the largest proportion of census tracts comprising mostly non‐White residents (those identifying as Hispanic or a race other than White), with median annual household income <$60 000, contained no CR facilities despite ranking among the county's highest in population density. CONCLUSIONS: Racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic characteristics are significantly associated with lack of geographic proximity to a CR facility. Interventions targeting geographic as well as nongeographic factors may be needed to reduce disparities in access to exercise‐based CR programs. Such interventions could increase the potential of CR to benefit patients at high risk for developing adverse cardiovascular outcomes.