New Studies Examine Impact of Poverty, Race, Ethnicity in Patients with SLE

The Rheumatologist—October 17, 2017

The Rheumatologist featured a recent study by HSS rheumatologist Jane E. Salmon, MD, that found that women of color with lupus were more likely to experience pregnancy complications than Caucasian women.

Dr. Salmon said "lupus is a disease of women in their reproductive years, and pregnancy is always stressful for these patients. There are significant racial disparities in frequency of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Black and Hispanic women with lupus are more likely to have complicated pregnancies. We wanted to dig a bit deeper, and try to untangle the factors that comprise the race/ethnicity variable. Were differences related to genetic factors or driven by socioeconomic status?"

The article reported that Dr. Salmon and her research team studied the outcomes of pregnancies for 408 women with lupus. They found that socioeconomic factors, personal education, median community income and median community education contributed to pregnancy outcomes.

"It’s easy for scientists to say, 'It’s genetics,' but there is solid research indicating that we may be glossing over the social determinants of health disparities. We must consider the other aspect of our patients’ lives—social position—which is causally linked to health," she added.

Read the full article at the-rheumatologist.org