Citation

Singer MB, Liou DZ, Clond MA, Bukur M, Mirocha J, Margulies DR, Salim A, Ley EJ. J. Trauma Acute Care Surg. 2013; 74(1): 312-316.

Affiliation

Division of Trauma and Critical Care, Department of Surgery, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California 90048, USA.

Comment In:

J Trauma Acute Care Surg 2013;75(2):347.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

10.1097/TA.0b013e31826fc899

PMID

23147178

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Little focus is on health care disparities in the elderly, a population largely covered by public insurance. We characterized insurance type and race in elderly trauma patients to determine if lack of insurance or minority status predict increased mortality.

METHODS: The National Trauma Data Bank (version 7.0) was queried for all adult blunt trauma patients. We divided patients into two cohorts (15-64 or ≥ 65 years) based on age for universal Medicare eligibility. Our primary outcome measure was in-hospital mortality. Multiple logistic regression was used to control for confounding variables.

RESULTS: A total of 541,471 patients met inclusion criteria. Among younger patients, the most common insurance type was private (41.0%), with 26.9% uninsured. In contrast, the most common insurance type among older patients was Medicare (64.6%), with 6.0% uninsured. Within the younger cohort, private insurance (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 0.6; p < 0.01) and other insurance (AOR, 0.8; p < 0.01) predicted reduced mortality, while Medicare predicted similar mortality (AOR, 1.1; p = 0.18) compared with no insurance. Black race (AOR, 1.4; p < 0.01) and Hispanic ethnicity (AOR, 1.4; p < 0.01) predicted higher mortality compared with white race. Within the older cohort, no insurance predicted similar mortality as Medicare (AOR, 1.0; p = 0.43), private insurance (AOR, 1.0; p = 0.51), and other insurance (AOR, 1.0; p = 0.71). Hispanic ethnicity predicted increased mortality (AOR, 1.4; p < 0.01), while Asian race was protective (AOR, 0.7; p = 0.01) compared with white race.

CONCLUSION: Elderly trauma patients present primarily with Medicare, while younger trauma patients are mostly privately insured; elderly patients are four times more likely to be insured. Disparities caused by lack of insurance and minority race are reduced in elderly trauma patients. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Epidemiologic/prognostic study, level III.

Language: en