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Minority children more likely to die waiting for heart transplants than white children
Socioeconomic factors accounted for only part of the discrepancy.
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According to study results, minority children have higher death rates awaiting a donor for a heart transplant than do white children, even when controlling for clinical risk factors.
Researchers in Boston examined data on 3,299 children taken from the United Network of Organ Sharing. The data included all U.S. children on the waiting list for a heart transplant during an eight-year period ending in 2006.
Of the 3,299 children included for analysis, 58% were white, 20% were black, 16% were Hispanic, 3% were Asian and the remaining 3% were classified as other. The researchers reported that even when adjusting for age, listing and health status, black children had a 60% greater chance of dying than white children; Hispanics had a 50% higher mortality rate. Asian children and those listed as “other” had between a 100% and 130% greater chance of dying than did white children.
Socioeconomic variables, according to the researchers, only accounted for about one-third of the difference in increased risk in black children and 20% of the increased risk in Hispanic children. After adjustment for medical insurance and area household income, the risk of death remained higher in minority children than for white children. Black children and Hispanic children, according to the researchers, tended to live in areas with lower median incomes ($33,352 and $37,516 respectively) than white children ($43,077). The researchers also reported that minority children were more likely to have Medicaid (58% black and 59% Hispanic) than were white children (24%).
“It is possible nonwhite children deteriorated more rapidly after listing or that those nonwhite parents preferred not to go to advanced therapies,” T.P Singh, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, said in a press release. “The data raises these questions without providing answers.”
For more information:
- Singh TP. #4957.