Measuring hospital-specific disparities by socioeconomic status among patients who underwent total joint arthroplasty in The Netherlands: a retrospective cohort study using Dutch Arthroplasty Register (LROI) data from 2017-2023
Starting date: January 14th 2025
Approval date: December 2024
M van der Linde, O Saarela, F Eijkenaar, M Oude Voshaar, D Eygendaal, J Bonsel, J Oude Groeniger, D Beeres, H Lingsma
Research proposal abstract
An important objective included in the Dutch Integral Care Agreement is to reduce health disparities between socioeconomic groups. Socioeconomic status (SES) is known to be associated with worse health outcomes of patients undergoing primary total hip arthroplasty (THA) or total knee arthroplasty (TKA).
However, the impact of SES on patient outcomes within hospitals remains unknown. Furthermore, the magnitude of these outcome differences may vary between hospitals, as some hospitals may be better able to prevent or mitigate differences for various SES groups. Gaining these insights is important to deepen understanding of how SES influences outcomes and how potential disparities might be mitigated.
This study aims to assess the presence of SES-related outcome differences of patients undergoing THA or TKA within different hospitals. Secondly, we will assess how these SES-related outcome differences vary between hospitals.
We will include all patients as registered in the Dutch Arthroplasty Registry (LROI) who have undergone primary THA or TKA due to osteoarthritis in the Netherlands during the years 2017-2023. We will assess hospital-specific disparities for both objective and patient-reported outcomes. The findings of this study will contribute to a better understanding of SES-related disparities in THA and TKA outcomes and the extent of hospital-level variation.