Social determinants of health independently impact post-heart transplant outcomes among Black children.
Social determinants of health (SDOH) independently impact post-heart transplant outcomes among Black children, but not White children, according to the results of a study presented at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2022, held from November 5th through 7th, in Chicago, Illinois. Read more from Infectious Disease Advisor.
Despite being markedly overrepresented among patients on dialysis, Black patients are less likely to be referred for a kidney transplant. Now, a recently implemented policy change may improve Black patients’ odds of a kidney transplant referral.
In September 2021, the American Society of Nephrology-National Kidney Foundation (ASN-NKF) Task Force on Reassessing the Inclusion of Race in Diagnosing Kidney Diseases recommended that the Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration (CKD-EPI) creatinine equation be altered to eliminate the race variable to estimate glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in all laboratories. It also recommended more widespread use of cystatin C. Read the full article in Renal & Urology News.
Black adults treated at advanced heart failure centers received potentially life-changing therapies, such as transplants and heart pumps, about half as often as white adults, possibly due to racial bias, a small National Institutes of Health-supported study has found. Read the full article from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Oct. 20, 2022 – A new study shows that life-saving heart procedures were performed on white adults twice as often as on Black adults, causing researchers to suspect racial bias among clinical decision-makers.
“The lives disabled or lost are simply too many,” Wendy C. Taddei-Peters, PhD, a study author, said in a news release from the National Institutes of Health. Read more in Web MD.
By Cara Murez HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 19, 2022 (HealthDay News) — A person with advanced heart failure may often need a heart transplant or a mechanical heart pump to survive.
But white patients are twice as likely as Black patients to get this critically important care, a new study finds, and racial bias may be the reason why. Read the full story in U.S. News & World Report.
UCSF-Hennepin County Study Shows Race-Free Creatinine Formula Helps Equalize Access
Using equations to calculate kidney function that do not include race adjustments would result in Black patients gaining time on the transplant waitlist before their kidneys fail that matched similar durations for white patients, according to a new study led by UC San Francisco and Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.
In their study, publishing in the journal CJASN on Sept. 19, 2022, the researchers compared the length of time from waitlist eligibility to kidney failure for Black and white patients. Read more from the University of California San Francisco.
A new report from the Milken Institute recommends that health officials prioritize identification of the root causes of health inequity that contribute to kidney disease in efforts to slow down its occurrence.
“Tackling this public health issue requires a whole-of-society effort, and in this report, we call on policymakers (federal, state and local), government agencies, health care administrators, health care providers, allied health professionals, payers, members of the community and community-based organizations (CBOs) to assume leadership and supporting roles and to collaborate with intention and urgency across public health, health delivery and nontraditional health sectors,” Sarah Wells Kocsis, MBA, director of the Milken Institute’s Center for Public Health and colleagues wrote in the report.
Read the full story from Healio.
Black pediatric cardiac transplant recipients experience perioperative stroke less frequently than White pediatric cardiac transplant recipients. Mortality among the survivors of perioperative stroke is initially similar, but after 6 months these Black children experience more than 3 times the mortality rate of the White children. These are among the study findings published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Researchers sought to evaluate racial and ethnic differences in occurrence of stroke following cardiac transplant and all-cause mortality after perioperative stroke in pediatric cardiac transplant recipients. Read the full story in CardiologyAdvisor.
Among pediatric cardiac transplant recipients who experience perioperative stroke, Black children are three times more likely to die beyond 6 months compared with white children, according to data from a registry analysis.
In a database analysis of pediatric transplants in the United States, researchers also found that Black children have a lower incidence of stroke after cardiac transplant compared with white children, and that mortality among survivors of perioperative stroke is initially similar by race and ethnicity. Read the full story in Healio.
Black patients with serious illness receive inferior pain management and poor communication from providers compared with their white counterparts, according to data released by Center to Advance Palliative Care.
Findings from the CAPC’s “Health Care for Black Patients with Serious Illness: A Literature Review” also showed a disproportionate burden on family caregivers of Black patients vs. white patients. Read more in Healio.