The impact of race/ethnicity and county-level upward economic mobility on textbook outcomes in hepatopancreatic surgery

Background: The impact of upward economic mobility and race/ethnicity on achieving quality metrics such as textbook outcomes remains ill-defined. As such, we sought to define the impact of race and county-level upward economic mobility on the ability to achieve a textbook outcome among patients undergoing hepatic and pancreatic surgery.

Methods: Patients who underwent hepatic or pancreatic procedures between 2013 and 2017 were identified from the Medicare Standard Analytic Files. The primary outcomes of interest were textbook outcome and its components.

Results: Among 35,403 patients, 17,923 (50.6%) patients were classified as living in a low upward economic mobility county, whereas 17,480 (49.4%) lived in a high upward economic mobility county. Furthermore, 32,981 (93.1%) patients were White, and 2,422 (6.8%) were Black. Overall, a textbook outcome was achieved in 45.6% of patients (n = 16,139), with textbook outcome most likely in patients from a high upward economic mobility county compared with a low upward economic mobility county (low: 44.6% vs high: 46.6%, P < .001). On multivariable analysis, patients in a low upward economic mobility county had 6% lower odds of achieving a textbook outcome compared with a high upward economic mobility county (odds ratio 0.94, 95% confidence interval 0.90-0.98). Furthermore, Black patients were less likely to achieve a textbook outcome (odds ratio 0.91, 95% confidence interval 0.84-0.99) and had 17% and 15% higher odds of developing a complication (odds ratio 1.17, 95% confidence interval 1.07-1.28) and extended length of stay (odds ratio 1.15, 95% confidence interval 1.05-1.27), respectively. Within races, White patients in a high upward economic mobility county had 7% higher odds of achieving a textbook outcome compared with White patients in a low upward economic mobility county (odds ratio 1.07, 95% confidence interval 1.02-1.12), although no such effect was observed in Black patients (odds ratio 0.94, 95% confidence interval 0.77-1.15). Furthermore, Black patients in a high upward economic mobility county had similar odds of achieving a textbook outcome compared with White patients in a low upward economic mobility county (odds ratio 0.92, 95% confidence interval 0.77-1.09).

Conclusion: These results highlight the differential impact of upward economic mobility and race on postoperative outcomes. Due to the health care implications of socioeconomic status, future policy initiatives should target economic mobility as a means to ensure greater health care equity.