Racial disparity in access to cardiac intensive care over 20 years.

OBJECTIVES: The purposes of this article are: (1) to systematically examine racial disparities in access to and use of cardiac care units (CCUs) in acute-care hospitals; and (2) to assess racial differences in post-hospital mortality following CCU stays.
DESIGN: Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I: Epidemiologic Follow-up Study of adults aged 25 and older at baseline are analyzed to track CCU use and survival after hospitalization over 20 years (N=4227). Estimates are derived from Cox proportional-hazards models with time-dependent covariates and from negative binomial and tobit regression analyses. All analyses adjust for disease severity, hospitalization history, and resources.
RESULTS: Black adults were less likely than White adults to be admitted to a CCU, even after adjusting for morbidities, health behaviors, previous hospitalization experience, and socioeconomic status. Comparing Black and White adults admitted to CCUs, Black adults spent fewer days and a smaller proportion of their hospital stay in CCUs. Black adults also had fewer CCU stays over the 20-year period and were more likely to die post-discharge, although the latter result was mediated by disease severity.
CONCLUSIONS: Higher morbidity, lower admission rates, fewer stays, and shorter stays reveal that racial inequality is far-reaching and exists even in such highly-specialized units as CCUs. The fact that Black individuals' greater post-discharge mortality was mediated by disease severity illustrated that even among high-risk individuals, the accumulation of morbidity factors (beyond cardiac problems) is a salient concern. Overall findings demonstrate that the accumulation of disadvantage for Black adults is not confined to discretionary medical measures, but also exists in critical care for serious health problems.