Real World Outcome Data for Spinal Cord Stimulation - Ethnic Minorities and Social Deprivation in asthma using a specific GloBody immunoassay

Abstract

Introduction: Health inequality can be influenced by many factors including geography (i.e. access to healthcare services), language and communication barriers, patient preferences, health literacy, waiting times, perceived discrimination and physician bias. Patient ethnicity and language barrier are themes that can often underlie many of these factors. The 2021 UK census showed that 7.1% of the population were proficient in English but did not use it as their main language. 1.5% of the population were unable to speak English well and a further 0.3% of the population were unable to speak English at all. There are certain areas of the UK where the percentage of people unable to speak English was even higher than this national figure (London, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham - 1.0%, 3.0%, 3.7% and 5.2% respectively).1 34% of adults in the UK (Adult Chronic Pain Health Survey, 2017) suffer from some degree of chronic pain.2 This burden potentially has similar prevalence in the non-English speaking contingent of patients suitable for neuromodulation therapies; however this has not been reported before. This is the first quantification of outcomes in patients with a language barrier highlighting key issues around SCS efficacy in this population.