Change of address as a measure of housing insecurity predicting rural emergency department revisits after asthma exacerbation.

Objective: Housing insecurity is an important socioeconomic factor that may impact emergency department (ED) use for children with asthma, but housing insecurity screening has primarily relied on patient surveys or linkage to external data sources. Using patient addresses recorded in the electronic medical record (EMR), we sought to correlate recent changes in address (as a proxy for housing insecurity) with ED revisit risk.

Methods: We retrospectively identified patients age 2-17 years seen in our rural ED for asthma exacerbation during 2016-2018.