Researchers from University of Arizona Report Details of New Studies and Findings in the Area of Myocardial Ischemia (County-level Variation In Healthcare Coverage and Ischemic Heart Disease Mortality): Heart Disorders and Diseases – Myocardial Ischemia

2024 APR 05 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Heart Disease Daily -- Current study results on Heart Disorders and Diseases - Myocardial Ischemia have been published. According to news reporting originating from Tucson, Arizona, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Healthcare coverage has been shown to have implications in the prevalence of coronary artery disease. We explore the impact of lack of healthcare coverage on ischemic heart disease (IHD) mortality in the US.Methods We obtained county-level IHD mortality and healthcare coverage data from the CDC databases for a total of 3,119 US counties.”

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from the University of Arizona, “The age-adjusted prevalence of current lack of health insurance among individuals aged 18 to 64 years were obtained for the years 2018 and 2019 and were placed into four quartiles. First (Q1) and fourth quartile (Q4) had the least and highest age-adjusted prevalence of adults without health insurance, respectively. IHD mortality rates, adjusted for age through the direct method, were obtained for the same years and compared among quartiles. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression for each demographic variable was conducted with the quartiles as an ordinal predictor variable and the age-adjusted mortality rate as the outcome variable.Results We identified a total of 172,942 deaths related to ischemic heart disease between 2018 and 2019. Overall AAMR was higher in Q4 (92.79 [95% CI, 92.35-93.23]) compared to Q1 (83.14 [95% CI, 82.74-83.54]), accounting for 9.65 excess deaths per 100,000 person-years (slope = 3.47, p = 0.09). Mortality rates in Q4 for males (126.20 [95% CI, 125.42-126.98] and females (65.57 [95% CI, 65.08-66.05]) were higher compared to Q1 (115.72 [95% CI, 114.99-116.44] and 57.48 [95% CI, 57.04-57.91], respectively), accounting for 10.48 and 8.09 excess deaths per 100,000 person-years for males and females, respectively. Similar trends were seen among Hispanic and non-Hispanic populations. Northeastern, Southern, and Western regions had higher AAMR within Q4 compared to Q1, with higher prevalence of current lack of health insurance accounting for 49.2, 8.15, and 29.04 excess deaths per 100,000 person-years, respectively.Conclusion A higher prevalence of adults without healthcare coverage may be associated with increased IHD mortality rates.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Our results serve as a hypothesis-generating platform for future research in this area.”

For more information on this research see: County-level Variation In Healthcare Coverage and Ischemic Heart Disease Mortality. PLOS ONE, 2024;19(1). PLOS ONE can be contacted at: Public Library Science, 1160 Battery Street, Ste 100, San Francisco, CA 94111, USA. (Public Library of Science - www.plos.org; PLOS ONE - www.plosone.org)

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Ramzi Ibrahim, University of Arizona, Dept. of Medicine, Tucson, AZ 85721, United States. Additional authors for this research include Adam Habib, Soumiya Ravi, Chelsea Takamatsu, Joao Paulo Ferreira, Kristina Terrani and Mohammed Salih.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292167. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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