TY - JOUR
T1 - Ethnicity/racial differences in employment outcomes following Spinal Cord Injury
AU - Arango-Lasprilla, Juan Carlos
AU - Ketchum, Jessica M.
AU - Stevens, Lillian Flores
AU - Balcazar, Fabricio
AU - Wehman, Paul
AU - Forster, Lauren
AU - Hsu, Nansy
PY - 2009/2/20
Y1 - 2009/2/20
N2 - Objective: To examine differences in employment outcomes among Hispanics and Caucasians with Spinal Cord Injuries at one year post-injury. Design: Retrospective study. Setting: Longitudinal dataset of the SCI Model Systems. Participants: 11,424 Individuals diagnosed with spinal cord injury (1369 Hispanics and 10055 Caucasians) that were enrolled in the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center (NSCISC) database and interviewed during their scheduled one-year post-injury follow-up evaluation between 1975 and 2006. Main Outcome Measures: Employment status (competitively employed, unemployed and other). Results: After adjusting for age, gender, marital status, education level, employment status at admissions, cause of injury, category of neuro-impairment, and ASIA impairment scale, race/ethnicity has a significant effect on employment status at 1 year post-injury. Specifically, the odds of unemployment versus employment were 1.864 times greater for Hispanics than for Caucasians (95% CI = 1.478, 2.349) and the odds of unemployment versus other were 1.980 times greater for Hispanics than for Caucasians (95% CI = 1.625, 2.413). Conclusions: Racial disparities do exist in successful employment after 1 year post SCI, particularly between Caucasians and Hispanics. Future research should focus on what factors contribute to this disparity, along with forming new education and rehabilitation strategies to improve return-to-work outcomes for Hispanics after SCI.
AB - Objective: To examine differences in employment outcomes among Hispanics and Caucasians with Spinal Cord Injuries at one year post-injury. Design: Retrospective study. Setting: Longitudinal dataset of the SCI Model Systems. Participants: 11,424 Individuals diagnosed with spinal cord injury (1369 Hispanics and 10055 Caucasians) that were enrolled in the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center (NSCISC) database and interviewed during their scheduled one-year post-injury follow-up evaluation between 1975 and 2006. Main Outcome Measures: Employment status (competitively employed, unemployed and other). Results: After adjusting for age, gender, marital status, education level, employment status at admissions, cause of injury, category of neuro-impairment, and ASIA impairment scale, race/ethnicity has a significant effect on employment status at 1 year post-injury. Specifically, the odds of unemployment versus employment were 1.864 times greater for Hispanics than for Caucasians (95% CI = 1.478, 2.349) and the odds of unemployment versus other were 1.980 times greater for Hispanics than for Caucasians (95% CI = 1.625, 2.413). Conclusions: Racial disparities do exist in successful employment after 1 year post SCI, particularly between Caucasians and Hispanics. Future research should focus on what factors contribute to this disparity, along with forming new education and rehabilitation strategies to improve return-to-work outcomes for Hispanics after SCI.
KW - And employment
KW - Minorities
KW - Spinal cord injury
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=60249096058&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=60249096058&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3233/NRE-2009-0452
DO - 10.3233/NRE-2009-0452
M3 - Article
C2 - 19208956
AN - SCOPUS:60249096058
VL - 24
SP - 37
EP - 46
JO - NeuroRehabilitation
JF - NeuroRehabilitation
SN - 1053-8135
IS - 1
ER -