A Fresh Perspective on a Familiar Problem: Examining Disparities in Knee Osteoarthritis Using a Markov Model.

Background: Disparities in the presentation of knee osteoarthritis (OA) and in the utilization of treatment across sex, racial, and ethnic groups in the United States are well documented.

Objectives: We used a Markov model to calculate lifetime costs of knee OA treatment. We then used the model results to compute costs of disparities in treatment by race, ethnicity, sex, and socioeconomic status.