Background: Several composite measures of neighborhood social vulnerability exist and are used in the health disparity literature. This study assesses the performance of the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) compared with three similar measures used in the surgical literature: Area Deprivation Index (ADI), Community Needs Index (CNI), and Distressed Communities Index (DCI). There are advantages of the SVI over these other scales, and we hypothesize that it performs equivalently.
Methods: We identified all cholecystectomies at a single, urban, academic hospital over a 9-month period. Cases were considered emergency if the patient presented and underwent surgery during that admission. We geocoded patient's addresses and assigned estimated SVI, ADI, CNI, and DCI. Cutoffs for high versus low social vulnerability were generated using Youden's index, and the scales were compared using multivariable modeling.
Results: Overall, 366 patients met inclusion criteria, and the majority (n = 266, 73%) had surgery in the emergency setting. On multivariable modeling, patients with high social vulnerability were more likely to undergo emergency surgery compared with those with low social vulnerability in accordance with all four scales: SVI (OR 3.24, P < 0.001), ADI (OR 3.2, P < 0.001), CNI (OR 1.90, P = 0.04), and DCI (OR 2.01, P = 0.03). The scales all had comparable predictive value.
Conclusions: The SVI performs similarly to other indices of neighborhood vulnerability in demonstrating disparities between emergency and elective surgery and is readily available and updated. Because the SVI has multiple subcategories in addition to the overall measure, it can be used to stratify by modifiable factors such as housing or transportation to inform interventions.
Keywords: Access to care; Cholecystectomy; Emergency general surgery; Geographic information systems; Health care disparities; Social vulnerability.
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