Study Findings on Lung Diseases and Conditions Are Outlined in Reports from East Carolina University (Patterns of Health Insurance Coverage and Lung Disease Progression In Adolescents and Young Adults With Cystic Fibrosis): Respiratory Tract Diseases and Conditions – Lung Diseases and Conditions

2022 APR 04 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Fresh data on Respiratory Tract Diseases and Conditions - Lung Diseases and Conditions are presented in a new report. According to news reporting originating from Greenville, North Carolina, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Health insurance coverage has been implicated as a socioeconomic factor affecting clinical outcomes in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF), but evidence for this is mixed and varies by age. Focusing on adolescents and young adults with CF, we examined how multiyear patterns of health insurance coverage were associated with lung function decline and related outcomes.”

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from East Carolina University, “We used data from the 2000 to 2015 CF Foundation Patient Registry to classify patients in three cohorts (ages 12-17 yr, adolescents; 18-23 yr, transitioning to adulthood; and 24-29 yr, young adults) according to health insurance coverage, as follows: continuous private, continuous public, intermittent public, and coverage gaps. The primary outcome was the percentage predicted forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV(1)pp), which was modeled using mixed-effects regression. Additional outcomes included outpatient visits, hospital days for pulmonary exacerbation treatment, bacterial colonization, and body mass index. Outcomes were assessed over a 6-year period (e.g., ages 12-17 yr), whereas exposures were assessed over the prior 6 years (e.g., ages 6-11 yr). The three cohorts included 3,365, 2,800, and 1,807 patients, respectively. The highest rate of FEV(1)pp decline was found in the middle cohort, with the annual decline being steeper among patients with continuous public (-3.1/yr; 95% confidence interval [CI], -3.3 to -2.8) or intermittent public (-2.4/yr; 95% CI, -2.6 to -2.2) coverage compared with patients with continuous private coverage (-2.1/yr; 95% CI, -2.2 to -2.0). These differences were not explained by differences in outpatient care utilization. During the transition to adulthood, use of public insurance was associated with accelerated lung function decline among patients with CF.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “The role of insurance as a causal factor in this decline or proxy for other socioeconomic characteristics should be explored in further studies.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Patterns of Health Insurance Coverage and Lung Disease Progression In Adolescents and Young Adults With Cystic Fibrosis. Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 2021;18(2):290-299. Annals of the American Thoracic Society can be contacted at: Amer Thoracic Soc, 25 Broadway, 18 Fl, New York, NY 10004, USA.

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Dmitry Tumin, East Carolina University, Dept. of Pediatrics, Brody School of Medicine, 600 Moye Blvd, Greenville, NC 27834, United States. Additional authors for this research include William Wooten, Erin M. Crowley, Clement L. Ren, Susan S. Li and Don Hayes.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1513/annalsats.201911-839oc. 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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