Background: Residents of plain communities constitute an underserved minority population that is not reliably captured in contemporary surgical outcomes research. We hypothesized that plain communities (PC) patients would have higher postoperative complication rates than a general surgical population.
Methods: A retrospective review of 30-day postoperative outcomes for PC patients compared to a majority (non-PC) matched patient population from September 2014 to March 2020 was performed. The primary outcome measure was any complication within 30 days of surgery.
Results: 270 PC patients were matched with 493 non-PC patients. The 30-day complication rate was higher for the PC group (6.3% vs 3.7%, P = .09), though not statistically significant. There was significantly lower utilization of preventive care services, and postoperative follow-up among PC patients.
Discussion: Although our regional PC surgical patient population utilized preventive and postoperative health care services less than the non-PC population, there was no statistically significant difference in overall 30-day postoperative morbidity or mortality.
Keywords: health disparities; minority population; plain community; postoperative outcomes; preventive care; surgical complications.