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Ethnic Inequalities in COPD Outcomes: a Register-Based Study in Copenhagen, Denmark

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An Erratum to this article was published on 02 February 2017

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the differences in age at diagnosis and survival time after diagnosis between Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients with native Danish and other ethnic backgrounds. Individuals diagnosed with COPD in a hospital setting in Copenhagen in the period 2003–2007 were identified from annual hospital contact records. The cohort was restricted to COPD patients older than 35 years old at diagnosis. Follow-up was available until the end of 2010. ANOVA was conducted to test if mean age at diagnosis differed between the patient groups with different ethnicity. Kaplan-Meier estimator was used to estimate survival time after diagnosis. Cox proportional hazards models were conducted to calculate hazards of death according to ethnicity. A total of 2845 COPD patients were included; 131 (4.6%) were with non-Western ethnic minority backgrounds. Patients with non-Western ethnic backgrounds were diagnosed at a younger age and had a better survival probability compared to ethnic Danish patients; hazard ratio HR (95% CI) for death during follow-up in non-Western vs. ethnic Danish patients was 0.33 (0.18–0.62). Our study showed marked differences in age at diagnosis and survival time after diagnosis between the COPD patients with different ethnic backgrounds residing in Copenhagen. Further studies are needed to find out the reasons for younger age of COPD diagnosis in non-Western minorities and for shorter survival time after diagnosis in ethnic Danish COPD patients.

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  • 02 February 2017

    An erratum to this article has been published.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to statistician Peder Frederiksen from the Research Unit for Dietary Studies at The Parker Institute for the advice on Cox modeling, and Helle Wallach-Kildemoes from the University of Copenhagen for the inputs during the manuscript preparation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section for Social and Clinical Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Yusun Hu & Lourdes Cantarero-Arévalo

  2. Research Unit for Chronic Conditions, Copenhagen University Hospital Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Anne Frølich

  3. Research Unit for Dietary Studies, The Parker Institute, Copenhagen University Hospital Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg, Nordre Fasanvej 57, 2000, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Ramune Jacobsen

Authors
  1. Yusun Hu
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  2. Lourdes Cantarero-Arévalo
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  3. Anne Frølich
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  4. Ramune Jacobsen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ramune Jacobsen.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors. The Danish Data Protection Agency granted permission to access the registry data (J.No. 2009–41-4071).

Additional information

An erratum to this article is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-017-0345-1.

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Hu, Y., Cantarero-Arévalo, L., Frølich, A. et al. Ethnic Inequalities in COPD Outcomes: a Register-Based Study in Copenhagen, Denmark. J. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 4, 1159–1164 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-016-0321-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-016-0321-1

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