According to a study published in Pediatrics, a higher risk of mortality was reported in children living in low-income neighborhoods who had cardiac surgery related to congenital heart defects.
Of the 100,000 examined cases, 60% involved children in their first year of life, with about one-quarter of cases involving patients who had surgery as neonates. About half of the operations were performed on white, non-Hispanic children, with 18% performed on Hispanic or Latino children and 12% on black non-Hispanic children, the authors said. Forty-five percent of children had public insurance.
The median patient in the analysis had a median community-level income of $41,437. Not surprisingly, the researchers said, patients in the lowest-income quartiles were more likely to be black/African American or Hispanic or Latino, on public insurance, to be premature, and to have comorbid conditions.
