Evaluating for Health Equity in a Safety Net Hospital: Socioeconomic Status, Adherence, and Outcomes in Cardiac Rehabilitation.

Purpose: Uncovering the racial/ethnic health disparities that exist within cardiovascular medicine offers potential to mitigate treatment gaps that might affect outcomes. Socioeconomic status (SES) may be a more appropriate underlying factor to assess these disparities. We aimed to evaluate whether adherence, attendance, and outcomes in cardiac rehabilitation are associated with SES in a safety net hospital.

Methods: We analyzed 542 patients in a retrospective cohort study of the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program at Boston Medical Center from 2016 to 2019. Enrollees had a mean age of 59.4 years, 34% were female, 42% Black, and 12% Hispanic. The zip codes of each enrollee were used to obtain their area deprivation index (ADI). The ADI reflects income, education, employment, and housing quality within a given zip code. Associations between ADI and adherence and attendance rate were evaluated while controlling for covariates. Secondary outcomes included associations of ADI with change in exercise capacity, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, weight, quality of life, nutrition, and depression scores.

Results: We applied logistic regression to examine the association between adherence and ADI with adjustment on the covariates. The attendance rate was analyzed with negative binomial regression with percent of sessions attended as prescribed as a dependent variable and adjusted on the same covariates. The primary outcome revealed no association for ADI with adherence to cardiac rehabilitation (OR = 0.91: 95% CI, 0.74-1.12) or attendance rate (RR = 0.91: 95% CI, 0.80-1.04). Utilizing multiple linear regression, secondary outcomes improved among patients regardless of ADI.

Conclusions: We found equity in our cardiac rehabilitation program outcomes despite SES.