Quality and Equity in Wheelchairs Used by Veterans.

The data were collected at a single point, so age, income, race, clinic setting, and site cannot be shown to cause wheelchair quality. Analyses were limited to White and African American Veterans because too few other racial groups and missing-race participants were included. Amputees were excluded from wheelchair-quality analyses because only 42 were present and their chair distributions differed from spinal cord injury patients. All participants were Veterans whose wheelchairs were VA-funded, so findings may not apply to people who obtain wheelchairs through private insurance or other systems. Site B had a higher share of African American participants than its general spinal cord injury population, possibly from over-recruitment, which may affect site comparisons. Several variables were split into categories because the data were not evenly spread, which can reduce detail and create arbitrary cut points.

Do not conclude that African American Veterans received worse wheelchairs because of race. The racial comparison was not statistically significant for manual or power chairs, and the data were collected at a single time point, so it cannot show cause.