Browsing by Author "Clarke, Philippa"

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    Continuity of care and receipt of aggressive end of life care among women dying of ovarian cancer
    (Elsevier, 2021) Mullins, Megan A.; Ruterbusch, Julie J.; Clarke, Philippa; Uppal, Shitanshu; Cote, Michele L.; Wallner, Lauren P.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Objective: To evaluate the association between post-diagnosis continuity of care and receipt of aggressive end of life care among women dying of ovarian cancer. Methods: This retrospective claims analysis included 6680 Medicare beneficiaries over age 66 with ovarian cancer who survived at least one year after diagnosis, had at least 4 outpatient evaluation and management visits and died between 2000 and 2016. We calculated the Bice-Boxerman Continuity of Care Index (COC) for each woman, and split COC into tertiles (high, medium, low). We compared late or no hospice use, >1 emergency department (ED) visit, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, >1 hospitalization, terminal hospitalization, chemotherapy, and invasive and/or life extending procedures among women with high or medium vs. low COC using multivariable adjusted logistic regression. Results: In this sample, 49.8% of women received aggressive care in the last month of life. Compared to women with low COC, women with high COC had 66% higher odds of chemotherapy (adjusted OR 1.66 CI 1.23-2.24) in the last two weeks of life. Women with high COC also had 16% greater odds of not enrolling in hospice compared to women with low COC (adjusted OR 1.16 CI 1.01-1.33). COC was not associated with late enrollment in hospice, hospital utilization, or aggressive procedures. Conclusions: COC at the end of life is complicated and may pose unique challenges in providing quality end of life care. Future work exploring the specific facets of continuity associated with quality end of life care is needed.
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    Physician Influence on Variation in Receipt of Aggressive End-of-Life Care Among Women Dying of Ovarian Cancer
    (American Society of Clinical Oncology, 2022) Mullins, Megan A.; Uppal, Shitanshu; Ruterbusch, Julie J.; Cote, Michele L.; Clarke, Philippa; Wallner, Lauren P.; Epidemiology, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health
    Purpose: End-of-life care for women with ovarian cancer is persistently aggressive, but factors associated with overuse are not well understood. We evaluated physician-level variation in receipt of aggressive end-of-life care and examined physician-level factors contributing to this variation in the SEER-Medicare data set. Methods: Medicare beneficiaries with ovarian cancer who died between 2000 and 2016 were included if they were diagnosed after age 66 years, had complete Medicare coverage between diagnosis and death, and had outpatient physician evaluation and management for their ovarian cancer. Using multilevel logistic regression, we examined physician variation in no hospice enrollment, late hospice enrollment (≤ 3 days), > 1 emergency department visit, an intensive care unit stay, terminal hospitalization, > 1 hospitalization, receiving a life-extending or invasive procedure, and chemotherapy (in the last 2 weeks). Results: In this sample of 6,288 women, 51% of women received at least one form of aggressive end-of-life care. Most common were no hospice enrollment (28.9%), an intensive care unit stay (18.6%), and receipt of an invasive procedure (20.7%). For not enrolling in hospice, 9.9% of variation was accounted for by physician clustering (P < .01). Chemotherapy had the highest physician variation (12.4%), with no meaningful portion of the variation explained by physician specialty, volume, region, or patient characteristics. Conclusion: In this study, a meaningful amount of variation in aggressive end-of-life care among women dying of ovarian cancer was at the physician level, suggesting that efforts to improve the quality of this care should include interventions aimed at physician practices and decision making in end-of-life care.
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    Risk Of Diabetes Among Adults Aging With Vision Impairment: The Role Of The Neighborhood Environment
    (Oxford University Press, 2022) Clarke, Philippa; Khan, Anam; Mintus, Kenzie; Ehrlich, Joshua; Sociology, School of Liberal Arts
    Experiencing vision loss as a result of the aging process may be different from aging with vision impairment (VI) acquired earlier in life. Adults aging with VI may be at risk for Type-2 Diabetes (T2DM) due to community barriers in accessing health care, healthy food, and recreational resources. We examined the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and incident diabetes in 22,719 adults aging with VI (without prevalent T2DM) in a private medical claims database (2008-2019). The primary outcome was time to incident T2DM diagnosis over 3+ years of enrollment. Cox models estimated hazard ratios (HRs) for incident diabetes (adjusted for age, sex, and comorbidities). Residence in neighborhoods with greater intersection density (HR=1.26) and traffic (HR=1.22) increased risk of T2DM, while broadband internet access (HR=0.67), optical stores (HR=0.62), supermarkets (HR=0.78), and gyms/fitness centers (HR=0.63) were associated with reduced risk. Results emphasize the importance of neighborhood context for aging well with VI.
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    Trends and racial disparities in aggressive end of life care for a national sample of women with ovarian cancer
    (Wiley, 2021) Mullins, Megan A.; Ruterbusch, Julie J.; Clarke, Philippa; Uppal, Shitanshu; Wallner, Lauren P.; Cote, Michele L.; Epidemiology, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health
    Background: The clinical landscape has moved toward less aggressive end-of-life care for women with ovarian cancer. However, whether there has been a decline in the use of aggressive end-of-life services is unknown. The authors evaluated current national trends and racial disparities in end-of-life care among women with ovarian cancer using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare-linked data set. Methods: In total, 7756 Medicare beneficiaries aged >66 years with ovarian cancer who died between 2007 and 2016 were identified. The authors examined trends and racial disparities in late hospice or no hospice use, >1 emergency department (ED) visit, intensive care unit admission, >1 hospitalization, terminal hospitalization, chemotherapy, and invasive and/or life-extending procedures using multivariable logistic regression. Results: The median hospice length of stay did not change over time; however, women were increasingly admitted to the intensive care unit and had multiple ED visits in the last month of life (P < .001). Not enrolling in hospice at the end of life and terminal hospitalizations decreased over time (P < .001). Non-White women were more likely to receive aggressive end-of-life care, particularly for hospital-related utilization and life-extending procedures, whereas non-Hispanic Black women were more likely to have >1 ED visit (odds ratio, 2.04; 95% CI, 1.57-2.64) or life-extending procedures (odds ratio, 1.89; 95% CI, 1.45-2.48) compared with non-Hispanic White women. Conclusions: Despite clinical guidelines and increasing emphasis on reducing aggressive end-of-life care, the use of aggressive end-of-life care for women with ovarian cancer persists, and care is most aggressive for non-White women.