Housing and economic insecurity leads to decreased rates of tympanostomy tube placement.

OBJECTIVES

To assess socioeconomic differences in tympanostomy tube (TT) placement for pediatric patients with otitis media (OM). The primary objective is to determine if there is a lower rate of TT placement for children with OM and housing and economic insecurity (HEI). The secondary objective was to assess rates of concurrent speech delay at time of TT placement.

METHODS

The TriNetx Analytics Network was queried using CPT and ICD-10 codes for pediatric patients with a history of OM. An analysis using propensity-matched cohorts was performed to assess the relationship between HEI and the rates of TT placement, and speech delay.

RESULTS

A total of 1,978,773 pediatric patients with OM were identified. Of those, 13,030 patients were identified as having HEI. After matching by demographics, patients with HEI were less likely to undergo TT placement than those without HEI (2.93 % vs. 6.15 %, p < 0.001). Housing insecurities had the greatest association with decreased TT placement (OR 0.449, 95 % CI 0.362,0.557), followed by transportation insecurities (OR 0.545, 95 % CI 0.39,0.762) and financial insecurities (OR 0.907, 95 % CI 0.691, 1.193). Patients with HEI had higher odds of having speech delays prior to TT placement (OR 1.8171, p < 0.0001) rather than those without HEI.

CONCLUSIONS

Patients with housing and economic insecurity have significantly lower rates of tympanostomy tube placement after otitis media, but higher rates of speech delay prior to tympanostomy tube placement.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level 1.