Community distress as a predictor of early hernia recurrence for older adults undergoing ventral hernia repair (VHR).

Background: Social cohesion and neighborhood support have been linked to improved health in a variety of fields, but is not well-studied among the elderly population. This is particularly evident in surgical populations. Therefore, this study sought to assess the potential role of community distress in predicting early hernia recurrence among older adults.

Methods: The Abdominal Core Health Quality Collaborative (ACHQC) was used to identify patients aged 65 or older undergoing elective ventral hernia repair with zip code data available. Patients were linked to the Distressed Communities Index (DCI), which is a national database that assigns a score of 0-100 to each zip code based on 7 measures of neighborhood prosperity. Quintiles were used to compare groups: prosperous (0-20), comfortable (21-40), mid-tier (41-60), at-risk (61-80), and distressed (81-100). Distressed (0-20), at-risk (21-40), mid-tier (41-60), comfortable (61-80), and prosperous (81-100). Time to recurrence for neighborhood distress quintiles was examined using a Cox proportional hazards model.

Results: In total, 9819 patients were included in the study, including 3056 (31.1%) prosperous, 2307 (23.5%) comfortable, 1795 (18.2%) mid-tier, 1390 (14.2%) at-risk, and 1271 (12.9%) distressed. Distressed communities had lower mean age and greater proportion of racial minorities (p < 0.001). Open repairs were significantly more common among the distressed group (66.7%), as were all comorbidities (p < 0.001). Recurrence-free survival was shorter for distressed communities compared to prosperous after adjusting for baseline characteristics (HR 1.3, 95% CI 1.07-1.67, p = 0.01). Mean time to recurrence was lowest for patients living in distressed communities, indicating the worst recurrence rates, while mean time to recurrence was greatest for those in prosperous zip codes (p < 0.001).

Conclusion: Older VHR patients presenting from distressed zip codes, as identified by the Distressed Communities Index, experience hernia recurrence significantly sooner as compared to patients from prosperous zip codes. This study may provide evidence of the role of neighborhood and environmental factors in caring for older patients following VHR.