2/ The pandemic has taught us so much about our health system, but it has especially shone a bright light on the social determinants as key drivers of #HealthEquity. Our review focused on:
🔸 race/ethnicity
🔸 finances
🔸 rurality/neighborhood
🔸 health literacy
🔸 social network
3/ The social construct of race has been one of the most well-studied determinants of #AFib incidence, treatment (including our work in anticoagulation disparities), and outcomes. Here we discuss why such inequities exist across the AFib care continuum.
4/ Our review also adds to a critical conversation on racial & ethnic representation in clinical trials, as well as observational & prospective cohort studies.
In the past decade, non-White racial/ethnic groups have been *very* underrepresented in #AFib studies. Room to improve!
5/
⬆️ income & wealth is related to better healthcare access, provider decision-making and clinical outcomes in #AFib while ⬇️ income has been related to higher rates of cardiac risk factors, adverse events & death.
6/ Prior work has shown differences in CV health b/w folks living in rural vs. urban settings but few have studied this in #AFib.
Similarly we discuss how more work is needed to study the complex intersection b/w neighborhood-level factors & AF outcomes. nature.com/articles/s4156…
7/ Low health literacy (and limited English proficiency) is related to ⬇️ awareness of #AFib, its treatment (including poor warfarin control) and its outcomes.
We need to improve capture of health literacy & understand its role in shared decision-making. nature.com/articles/s4156…
8/ Little has been published on the relationship between social support (e.g., partners, caregivers) or social connectedness (or lack thereof) on #AFib.
We propose a pathway for the physical & psychological connection & highlight this area as another important future direction.
9/ In summary, we argue that #AFib offers an important opportunity to study the social determinants, including how they all overlap/interact at the patient, community, and policy level.
We also must acknowledge how structural racism drives many of the factors we discuss.
10/ Also, we didn’t get to mention factors such as access to safe neighborhoods & healthy food, allostatic load, adverse childhood events, housing instability & homelessness, incarceration, or immigration status given the lack of #AFib literature.
This was a study of >81,000 MCAT examinees (0.3% American Indian or Alaska Native, 21.3% Asian, 10.1% Black, 8.0% Hispanic, and 60.4% White) from 2015-2018.
I don’t know about y’all, but this was *the* hardest test I took. 😳
If y’all read *one* thing today, might I suggest this new article in @NEJM?
“The belief that Black people have denser bones, more muscle, or thicker skin led radiologists and technicians to use higher radiation exposure during x-ray procedures.”
In the latest issue of @JAMA_current, my mentor Michael Fine, Donna Washington and I were invited to discuss a new 📝 on disparities in SGLT2i and GLP1-RA use for diabetes and what it means for the field of #Pharmacoequity research.
2/ As has been discussed frequently over the last month with the insulin co-pay provisions in the #InflationReductionAct, >37 million people in the US have #diabetes.
Regrettably, underrepresented racial and ethnic groups folks have ⬆️ rates of diabetes.
3/ Even with the ⬆️ rates of diabetes, Black, Hispanic, and Asian patients in the US have been shown to have lower rates of #diabetes treatment, especially with the newer drugs available such as SGLT2i & GLP1-RAs.
In @JAMANetworkOpen, we found that VA patients with #AFib who experience homelessness had a 21% ⬇️ odds of receiving stroke-preventing anticoagulation (blood thinners).
Previously, if you looked up "homeless & atrial fibrillation" in PubMed, only 5 results came up.
This included a 2003 @JAMAInternalMed study that saw that Ohio Medicaid enrollees had ⬇️ use of warfarin if they had homelessness or inadequate housing.
As part of a special issue on 💊 costs & access, we wrote a broad review on “Pursuing #Pharmacoequity - Determinants, Drivers, and Pathways to Progress.
We talk social & health policy, research, patient & prescriber factors. 👇🏾👇🏾
2/ Understanding the multilevel determinants that influence equitable access to medications (and trying to do so in <5000 words (!) was the goal of our review.
With so many factors out there, we know we only began to scratch the surface.
Led by future Dr. @rohankhaz, we dive into the challenges & opportunities in ensuring that patients and communities most affected by the pandemic can get the care they need.
2/ At risk of redundancy, we previously discussed the challenges in achieving #Pharmacoequity, including in the pandemic, noting, “…For example, treatment of patients with #COVID19 has revealed substantial inequities in access to life-saving treatments.”
3/ That observation was supported by national CDC data from earlier this year, as well as a recent national analysis of Medicare enrollees that found that Black patients had a 23% ⬇️ odds of receiving monoclonal antibodies when diagnosed with #COVID19.