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[Preprint]. 2023 Nov 28:rs.3.rs-3580911.
doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3580911/v1.

Social Vulnerability and Surgery Outcomes: A Cross-sectional Analysis

Affiliations

Social Vulnerability and Surgery Outcomes: A Cross-sectional Analysis

Mohamed Abdelhack et al. Res Sq. .

Update in

Abstract

Background: Post-operative complications present a challenge to the healthcare system due to the high unpredictability of their incidence. However, the socioeconomic factors that relate to postoperative complications are still unclear as they can be heterogeneous based on communities, types of surgical services, and sex and gender.

Methods: In this study, we conducted a large population cross-sectional analysis of social vulnerability and the odds of various post-surgical complications. We built statistical logistic regression models of postsurgical complications with social vulnerability index as the independent variable along with sex interaction.

Results: We found that social vulnerability was associated with abnormal heart rhythm with socioeconomic status and housing status being the main association factors. We also found associations of the interaction of social vulnerability and female sex with an increase in odds of heart attack and surgical wound infection.

Conclusions: Our results indicate that social vulnerability measures such as socioeconomic status and housing conditions could be related to health outcomes. This suggests that the domain of preventive medicine should place social vulnerability as a priority to achieve its goals.

Keywords: Social vulnerability; housing status; postsurgical complications; sex interaction; socioeconomic status.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Sample outcome mapped with social vulnerability index (SVI):
Mapping of SVI in counties of St. Louis bistate area with the odds of a sample outcome (abnormal heart rhythm) stratified by sex-at-birth for each census tract. Background color specifies the SVI value for the census tract and the pie chart radius indicated the proportion of the census tract population with the adverse outcome while the portion of the pie indicates the sex percentages. Counties with less than 20 subjects are omitted.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Coefficients of the overall SVI value in the association models for each outcome:
Models of level 0 and level one are also compared to indicate the mediation effects.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Coefficients of the interaction of overall SVI value with sex in the association models for each outcome:
Models of level 0 and level one are also compared to indicate the mediation effects.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Coefficients of the thematic SVI value in the association models for each outcome:
Models of level 1 only are displayed here.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Coefficients of the interaction of thematic SVI value with sex in the association models for each outcome:
Models of level 1 only are displayed here.

References

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