The Association Between Socioeconomic Status and Asthma Inpatient Hospitalizations and Emergency Department Visits Among World Trade Center Rescue Workers and Survivors

Jennifer Brite , City University of New York (CUNY)
Howard Alper, World Trade Center Health Registry
James Cone, World Trade Center Health Registry
Stephen Friedman, World Trade Center Health Registry
Erin Takemoto, World Trade Center Health Registry

Aim: To determine the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and the need for acute asthma care in the World Trade Center Health Registry. Methods: This cohort comprises more than 70,000 rescue workers and community members affected by the 9/11 disaster. Data was matched to an administrative database of inpatient (IP) stays and emergency department (ED) visits up until 2016. Those who experienced an asthma-related hospital visit and those that didn’t were compared by chi-squared test. Future methods to be used include a Poisson regression analysis of number of IP and ED encounters and a mediation analysis of the role of barriers to care. Results: Those of lower SES were more likely to need asthma-related acute medical care. Conclusion: The identification of vulnerable subpopulations is an important goal in order to reduce the burden of asthma-related hospital care.

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 Presented in Session 44. Studying Health and Mortality Using Linked Data