Social Determinants of Health Do Not Fully Account for Black-White Clozapine Gap

Even after accounting for variables such as access to care and social determinants of health, Black patients with schizophrenia are less likely than their White counterparts to receive a clozapine prescription, according to astudy published this week inPsychiatric Services. Clozapine is considered the gold-standard medication for treatment-resistant schizophrenia, but data show it remains underused.Spenser Barry, B.S., of the University of North Carolina Wilmington, L. Fredrik Jarskog, M.D., of North Carolina Psychiatric Research Center, and colleagues analyzed electronic health record (EHR) data from University of North Carolina Health, which comprises 16 hospitals and more than 500 clinics throughout North Carolina. They looked for adults (aged 18 to 64) diagnosed with schizophrenia between October 1, 2015, and November 30, 2021. The EHRs provided information on how long participants were in treatment, the number of antipsychotics other than clozapine they received, whether they received clozapine during the study period, and their recorded race.To quantify participants ’ social determinants of health, the authors used the 2018 census tract-level social vulnerability index (SVI), which measures the relative vulnerability of every U.S. Census tract. SVI uses four census variables: socioeconomic status; household composition and disability; minority status and lang uage (English fluency); and housing and transportation (access to a vehicle). Higher scores indicate greater s...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: clozapine health disparities North Carolina Psychiatric Services schizophrenia social determinants of health social vulnerability index SVI treatment-resistant schizophrenia Source Type: research