A new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine, “Neighborhood Socioeconomic Disadvantage and 30-Day Rehospitalization: A Retrospective Cohort Study”, found that Medicare beneficiaries living in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods were tied with having a higher readmission risk, after you control for other factors. (The study used census-block-level data and the Singh area deprivation index to find the top 15% most disadvantaged neighborhoods.)

The authors found that living in one of these neighborhoods gave individuals a readmission risk similar to having chronic pulmonary disease, after controlling for other factors. The authors state: “Although most clinicians would agree with our findings, in practice, issues of socioeconomic disadvantage are often overlooked for 3 reasons: clinicians do not agree
on how to measure disadvantage, they lack time and hesitate to ask for highly personal data, and they do not always know what to do about disadvantage when they find it.”

For a deeper analysis of the study, click here. To download the study, click here (will require login information).