Racial, ethnic minority patients diagnosed with glaucoma earlier than white patients
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Key takeaways:
- Black/African American patients are more likely to have a diagnosis of severe glaucomatous disease than white patients.
- Community programs and outreach can help improve patient access to care.
NEW ORLEANS — Racial and ethnic minorities are diagnosed with glaucoma at earlier ages, according to a poster presentation at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting.
The analysis also showed that Black/African American patients are more likely to have a diagnosis of more severe glaucomatous disease compared with white patients.
“We were able to validate prior patterns that we have seen relating to glaucoma using the [NIH] All of Us database,” study author Kaela Acuff told Healio/OSN. “We also highlight a large gap in diagnosis codings, which draws into question ways that we can try and not only streamline the process for ophthalmologists entering their ICD codes, but also think of ways that we can improve so that we can continue to analyze these associations that we are seeing.”
Acuff and colleagues analyzed patterns of diagnosis coding usage among 2,982 patients who had a diagnosis code related to primary glaucoma, reviewed patient demographic data, and compared age at first diagnosis for Black/African American and other minority race and ethnic patients with white patients.
Glaucoma was diagnosed an average of 6 years earlier in minority races and 4 years earlier in minority ethnicities compared with white patients.
“As always, we want to focus on addressing significant health care disparities, whether that be through community programs, outreach or data implementation that allows us to send out alerts or reminders to these patients that reminds them to follow up with their care or to take their medications,” Acuff said. “Hopefully with all of that we can continue to improve access for our patients.”
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Acuff K, et al. Racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in glaucoma onset and severity in a diverse nationwide cohort. Presented at: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting; April 23-27, 2023; New Orleans.
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