Abstract
To better understand determinants and potential disparities in end of life, we model decedents’ place of death with explanatory variables describing familial, social, and economic resources. A retrospective cohort of 204,041 decedents and their family members are drawn from the Utah Population Database family caregiving dataset. Using multinomial regression, we model place of death, categorized as at home, in a hospital, in another location, or unknown. The model includes family relationship variables, sex, race and ethnicity, and a socioeconomic status score, with control variables for age at death and death year. We identified the effect of a family network of multiple caregivers, with 3+ daughters decreasing odds of a hospital death by 17 percent (OR: 0.83 [0.79, 0.87], p < 0.001). Place of death also varies significantly by race and ethnicity, with most nonwhite groups more likely to die in a hospital. These determinants may contribute to disparities in end of life.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 663-675 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Death Studies |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2024 |
Funding
We acknowledge partial support for the Utah Population Database from the National Cancer Institute under grant P30 CA2014; and the National Center for Research Resources grant, “Sharing Statewide Health Data for Genetic Research” under R01 RR021746 (G. Mineau, PI). The authors would like to thank the Pedigree and Population Resource of Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah (funded in part by the Huntsman Cancer Foundation) for its role in the ongoing collection, maintenance, and support of the Utah Population Database (UPDB). We also thank the Hate, Aggression, Terrorism, and Extremism Research (HATER) Lab of the University of Utah for their support.