CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) – Some children are seeing delayed access to surgical care depending on where they live.
A new study by Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago found that children from less resourced neighborhoods were more likely to present with complicated appendicitis.
It’s an indicator of delayed access to surgical care.
This is the first pediatric study to link many neighborhood-level factors that influence health – such as quality of schools, housing, safety, and economic opportunity – to timely surgical care access.
It followed more than 67,000 children under the age of 18 who had appendicitis and found that kids from less resourced neighborhoods were 28% more likely to have complications.
“Timely access to pediatric surgical care may help reduce the need for emergency surgery, long hospital stays, or admission to the intensive care unit,” said co-author Dr. Fizan Abdullah, division head of pediatric surgery at Lurie Children’s and professor of surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Researchers hope their findings will be used to develop programs and policies to increase access to surgical care no matter where a child lives.
The findings are published in the journal JAMA Network Open.
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