Tag Archives: health care disparities

Telemedicine Expansion to Rural Areas Limited by Lack of Broadband Infrastructure

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Coleman Drake, PhDAssistant Professor, Health Policy and ManagementPitt Public HealthUniversity of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health

Dr. Drake

Coleman Drake, PhD
Assistant Professor, Health Policy and Management
Pitt Public Health
University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health 

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

 Response: Telemedicine is frequently proposed as a solution to improve access to care in rural areas where driving to the nearest physician can take up to several hours. However, there needs to be sufficient broadband infrastructure for patients to actually use telemedicine. We found that broadband infrastructure is often insufficient to support telemedicine in the most rural areas, particularly in areas where there is inadequate access to primary care physicians and psychiatrists. 

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Growth in Rural Emergency Department Visits Outpace Urban Increases

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Margaret B. Greenwood-Ericksen MD, MScDepartment of Emergency MedicineUniversity of New MexicoAlbuquerque, NM 87109

Dr. Greenwood-Ericksen

Margaret B. Greenwood-Ericksen MD, MSc
Department of Emergency Medicine
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87109

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?  

Response: I’m an emergency physician, so I see first-hand how emergency department use patterns provide a lens into the status of health care delivery in the communities they serve. Troubling declines in the health of rural Americans coupled with rising rural hospital closures – with little access to alternative sites of care like urgent care – all led me to hypothesize that rural populations may be engaging with the health care system differently than their urban counterparts.

Understanding the health care use of individuals in rural areas may yield insights into addressing rural health disparities. Further, this information may help healthcare systems and policymakers to make data-driven decisions informing new models of healthcare delivery for rural communities.

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Undiagnosed Sleep Apnea Linked to Resistant Hypertension in African Americans

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Dayna A. Johnson PhD Department of Epidemiology Emory University Atlanta, GA

Dr. Johnson

Dayna A. Johnson PhD
Department of Epidemiology
Emory University
Atlanta, GA

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: There are several studies that have determined that African Americans have the highest prevalence of hypertension and are the most likely to have uncontrolled hypertension compared to other racial/ethnic groups. We were interested in studying whether sleep apnea contributed to hypertension control among African Americans.

We found that participants with sleep apnea were more likely to have resistant hypertension than those without sleep apnea. In particular, individuals with severe sleep apnea had the highest risk of resistant hypertension. Most of the participants with measured sleep apnea were undiagnosed (96%).  Continue reading →

Racial and Gender Disparities in Stroke Risks

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Virginia J. Howard,PhD, FAHA, FSCT   
 Professor of Epidemiology
The University of Alabama at Birmingham

MedicalResearch.com:  What is the background for this study?

Response: This study comes from the REasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study, a national cohort study of 30,239 non-Hispanic black and white community-dwelling participants aged 45 years and older who lived in the 48 contiguous US states. 

REGARDS was designed to study risk factors for the development of stroke, with a focus on black and white comparisons as well as comparisons across geographic regions of the US.

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Disparities Remain But Blacks Experience Greatest All-Cause Mortality Reductions

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Katie Hastings MPH Stanford Medicine 

Kate Hastings

Katie Hastings MPH
Stanford University School of Medicine
Stanford, California

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Heart disease has been the leading cause of death since the early 1900s, but recent data has suggested cancer will surpass heart disease in the upcoming decades. To date, this is the first study to examine the transition from heart disease to cancer mortality as the leading cause of death by U.S. county and sociodemographic characteristics using national mortality records from 2003 to 2015.

Our main findings are:

  • Epidemiologic transition is occurring earlier in high compared to low income U.S. counties, and occurs earlier for Asian Americans, Hispanics, and NHWs compared to blacks and American Indians/Alaska Natives.
  • Data may suggest that this shift arises from larger reductions in heart disease than cancer mortality over the study period, particularly in the highest income counties.
  • Continued disparities in heart disease and cancer mortality between blacks and other racial/ethnic groups, even in the highest income quintiles. While blacks continue to have the highest overall mortality than any other group, we do show this population experienced the greatest overall improvements in mortality (i.e. mortality rate reductions over time) for all-cause, heart disease, and cancer compared to all other racial/ethnic groups (except for heart disease in Hispanics). 

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Poor and Racial Minorities Have Worse Home Health Care Outcomes

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, MPH Washington University School of Medicine Saint Louis MO

Dr. Joynt-Maddox

Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, MPH
Washington University School of Medicine
Saint Louis MO

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Home health is one of the fastest-growing sectors in Medicare, and the setting of a new federal value-based payment program, yet little is known about disparities in clinical outcomes among Medicare beneficiaries receiving home health care.

We found that beneficiaries who were poor or Black had worse clinical outcomes in home health care than their peers. These individuals were generally more likely to have unplanned hospitalizations, readmissions, and emergency department visits. Under Home Health Value-Based Purchasing, these patterns should be tracked carefully to ensure the program helps close the gaps rather than widening them.

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Why Is It So Hard To Attract and Retain Rural Primary Care Physicians?

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Matthew R. McGrail, PhD Monash University School of Rural Health Churchill, Victoria Australia

Dr. McGrail

Matthew R. McGrail, PhD
Monash University
School of Rural Health
Churchill, Victoria Australia

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Rural populations continue to experience relative shortages of the supply of primary care physicians, with associated links to poorer health. Although considerable research has identified factors that facilitate or impede supply of physicians in rural areas, macro-level empirical evidence of observed rural mobility of physicians – notably, which are more likely to move and why – is limited.

Improved understanding of mobility and nonretention of rural physicians is important because of its impact on training and workforce policy, and resultant physician supply to both the origin area (ie, the location from which the physician moved) and to the destination area (ie, the location to which the physician has moved). The cost of mobility and staff turnover can be large, both in direct costs but also in terms of service quality and continuity to the community.

In our study, we aimed to describe the geographic mobility patterns of rural primary care physicians. This evidence will provide stronger understanding of the factors behind the observed mobility and nonretention of rural primary care physicians.

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