Short-and Long-term Patient Outcomes in Hospitals Primarily Serving Patients with Colorectal Cancer from High-Poverty Areas—An Observational Cohort Study

TL;DR

This study finds that hospitals serving many patients from high-poverty areas have worse outcomes for colorectal cancer patients.

Contribution

The study identifies hospitals predominantly serving high-poverty patients and links them to poorer health outcomes.

Findings

Patients from high-poverty areas treated at poverty-area-serving hospitals had more in-hospital adverse events and readmissions.

These patients also experienced higher all-cause and cancer-specific mortality compared to those from low-poverty areas.

The findings highlight healthcare segregation and systemic inequities affecting disadvantaged populations.

Abstract

Prior evidence indicate that differences in treatment settings between patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) from high-poverty areas (HPA, ≥ 20% residents living under poverty level) and low-poverty areas (LPA) might have contributed to disparities in their health outcomes. We sought to determine whether certain hospitals predominantly provided surgical care for patients with CRC from HPAs and examine associated patient outcomes.

We identified patients undergoing surgery for nonmetastatic CRC diagnosed during 1/1/2009–12/31/2019 from SEER-Medicare. We defined poverty-area-serving (PAS) hospitals as hospitals with ≥ 50% patients from HPAs. We compared in-hospital adverse events, 30 day readmission, and long-term mortality between patients from HPAs and LPAs treated at PAS and non-PAS hospitals using logistic and Cox regression.

Our cohort included 81,992 patients with CRC (median age = 78 years, 53.8% female, 15.9% in HPAs) treated by 991 hospitals. The 180 (18.2%) PAS hospitals treated 64.2% of patients from HPAs versus 2.6% from LPAs. Compared with patients from LPAs treated at non-PAS hospitals, patients from HPAs treated at PAS hospitals had more frequent in-hospital adverse events (OR[95%CI] = 1.17[1.07–1.29]), 30-day readmission (OR[95%CI] = 1.33[1.20–1.47]), worse all-cause (HR[95%CI] = 1.16[1.10–1.22]), and cancer-specific mortality (HR[95%CI] = 1.23[1.15–1.32]).

A group of PAS hospitals treated a significant proportion of patients with CRC from HPAs and few from LPAs and was associated with worse short- and long-term patient outcomes. These findings highlight the presence and negative impact of healthcare segregation by area-level poverty and systemic inequities faced by individuals from HPAs. Multilevel resources are needed to address quality of care and other healthcare-associated needs for individuals from disadvantaged areas.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1245/s10434-025-18816-2.

Figures