A new study finds that preschool-aged children with sickle cell disease (SCD) who live in food deserts and have limited access to transportation are at greater risk for acute complications and hospitalizations, despite receiving free evidence-based therapy and social support, according to results published today in Blood Advances . "Despite the level of care received by the families and patients within our clinic, we still have a gap in terms of being able to address the barriers they're experiencing within the community," said senior study author Jason Hodges, PhD, MA, director of research and clinical studies in the Department of Hematology at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis.
We need to think about the neighborhood and context that these patients and families are coming from because that has a huge impact on health." Jason Hodges, Director, Research and Clinical Studies, Department of Hematology, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital While previous studies have shown that social determinants of health (SDoH) – the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and learn – can impact the health of children with SCD, less is known about how community-level factors, such as transportation access, income level, education attainment, and proximity to a grocery store may contribute to health disparities in these patients.
For this study, Dr. Hodges and his team wanted to take a more granular look at specific community-level SDoH – for example, h.