Burden of COPD: Racial Disparities Among the Medicaid Population
April 7, 2009
Taken from the Chest Journal pub. April 2009
Background: Asthma and COPD are characterized by substantial racial disparities in morbidity and mortality, with African-American (AA) patients experiencing greater mortality and morbidity. This suggests that AA with COPD and/or asthma would use greater healthcare resources. We tested the hypothesis that AA patients utilize more healthcare resources than Caucasians © when no difference in health insurance exists.
Methods: A retrospective population-based cohort study was conducted using Maryland Medicaid Managed Care patient encounter data. We compared health services utilization and cost-outcomes in AA patients with C patients with COPD, asthma or coexisting COPD and asthma.
Results: The total study population consisted of 9,131 patients with COPD, asthma or both. Of the total population, 52% (n = 4723) were AA, and 44% (n = 4021) were C; all other races were combined with unknown race to account for 4% (n = 387). After controlling for age, gender, cohort allocation, and comorbidities, we found that AA adults with COPD, asthma or coexisting asthma/COPD, actually used fewer medical services and accounted for lower medical costs than C.
Conclusions: Lower health services utilization and medical costs among AA than C in diagnosis and treatment of obstructive lung disease may provide some possible explanation for the racial disparities in outcomes of patients with COPD and asthma.
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