Early Death or Hospital Readmission

BACKGROUNDThe relationship of socioeconomic status (SES) with hospital readmissions is unclear.METHODSWe used population‐based administrative datasets to randomly select 40,827 adult Ontarians discharged from hospital to the community. Patient postal codes were linked to average neighborhood household‐income quintiles. The association of this SES measure with 30‐day death or urgent readmission was measured after controlling for outcome risk using a validated index, LACE+: length of stay (L), acuity of the admission (A), comorbidity of the patient (measured with the Charlson Comorbidity Index score (C), and emergency‐department use (E).RESULTSWithin 1 month of discharge, 2638 (6.5%) people died or were urgently readmitted. Lower neighborhood income was significantly associated with both an increased outcome risk (P