Social Disparities in Thoracic Surgery Database Research: Implications and Impact

Abstract

A complex relationship exists between health care disparities and large databases among the thoracic surgical patient population. Using the example of thoracic malignancies, the ability of investigations leveraging large databases and novel analytical approaches to highlight disparate access to care and discordant outcomes following treatment is illustrated. Large, widely used databases may not be representative of the thoracic surgical patient population as a whole, and caution must be used when interpreting and generalizing results gleaned from such database analyses. Ensuring appropriate representation of all relevant patient subgroups in research databases will improve external generalizability and scientific validity of future investigations.

Keywords: Big data; Database research; Esophageal cancer; Health care disparities; Informatics; Mesothelioma; Non–small cell lung cancer; Thoracic surgery.