WEDNESDAY, Nov. 23, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Despite a younger age, Black participants hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) have a more geriatric phenotype, with more functional impairments, according to a study published online Nov. 23 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Patrick C. Demkowicz, from the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues analyzed data from patients aged 75 years or older who were hospitalized for AMI at 94 U.S. hospitals from 2013 to 2016 to examine racial disparities in aging-specific functional impairments and mortality.
Of the 2,918 participants, 91.4 and 8.6 percent self-identified as White and Black, respectively. The researchers found that compared with White participants, Black participants were younger (80.8 versus 81.7 years) and more likely to be female (64.8 versus 42.5 percent). The likelihood of presenting with impairments in cognition, mobility, and vision was significantly increased among Blacks, and they were also more likely to report a disability in one or more activities of daily living and an unintentional loss of more than 10 lb in the year before hospitalization. Black participants had an unadjusted odds ratio of six-month mortality of 2.0 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.4 to 2.8), which was attenuated after adjustment for age and clinical characteristics (odds ratio, 1.7; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.2 to 2.5) and became nonsignificant after adjustment for functional/geriatric conditions (odds ratio, 1.5; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.0 to 2.2).
“Further attention is needed to develop and implement posthospital care programs that address the specific needs of older Black patients,” the authors write.
One author disclosed financial ties to Roivant Sciences; a second author disclosed receiving fees from CVS.
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