Vestibular Vertigo and Disparities in Healthcare Access Among Adults in the United States.
Gun Min Youn, Jay P Shah, Yuri Agrawal and 1 others
PMID 36920251WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with vestibular vertigo face significantly higher barriers to care than those without.
Uninsured individuals were far more likely to skip medications or delay specialist visits due to cost. African Americans with vertigo were also more likely to delay care due to transportation issues.
Key findings
01Participants with vestibular vertigo were more likely to report delaying medical care due to cost (17.7% vs 14.1%), delaying care due to transportation (7.5% vs 1.4%), and being unable to afford specialist care (10.3% vs 2.9%).
02Compared to those with private insurance, uninsured individuals with vestibular vertigo had much higher odds of being unable to access needed medical care (OR 3.581), specialist care (OR 3.527), and prescriptions (OR 3.318) due to cost.
03African Americans with vestibular vertigo were significantly more likely to delay necessary medical care due to a lack of transportation compared to Caucasian Americans (OR 2.157), an association not seen in the non-vertigo population.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study is cross-sectional, so it cannot prove that having vertigo causes these barriers, only that they are associated. Vestibular vertigo was defined by self-reported symptoms in a survey, not by clinical examination, which may lead to misclassification. The analysis could not stratify race by socioeconomic status due to sample size constraints, potentially masking complex interactions. The data is from 2016 and may not reflect current insurance landscapes or post-pandemic healthcare access patterns. The survey did not include data on headaches, a common comorbidity in vestibular migraine, which could confound results.
Declared interests
The study was supported by NIH grants. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that public insurance fully solves access issues for these patients. While it reduced cost-related delays, individuals with public insurance still had a higher risk of delaying care due to inadequate transportation (OR 2.308).