Effect of educational level and minority status on nursing home choice after hospital discharge

J. Angelelli, D.C. Grabowski and V. Mor

American Journal of Public Health, 2006, vol. 96, issue 7, 1249-1253

Abstract: Objectives. The movement to publicly report data on provider quality to inform consumer choices is predicated on assumptions of equal access and knowledge. We examine the validity of this assumption by testing whether minority/less educated Medicare patients are at greater risk of being discharged from a hospital to the lowest-quality nursing homes in a geographic area. Methods. We used the 2002 national Minimum Data Set to identify 62 601 new Medicare admissions to nursing homes in 95 hospital service areas with at least 4 freestanding nursing homes and at least 50 African Americans aged 65 years or older with Medicare admissions to nursing homes. Results. The probability of African Americans' being admitted to nursing homes in the lowest-quality quartile in the area was greater (relative risk [RR] = 1.26; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.0, 8.45) in comparison with Whites. Individuals without a high-school degree were also more likely to be admitted to a low-quality nursing home (RR = 1.22; 95% CI = 1.0, 1.46). Conclusions. African American and poorly educated patients enter the worst-quality nursing facilities. This finding raises concerns about the usefulness of the current public reporting model for certain consumers.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2005.062224

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2005.062224_1

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2005.062224

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Alfredo Morabia

More articles in American Journal of Public Health from American Public Health Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().