Impact of Living in a Food Desert on Complications After Fracture Surgery

Food deserts-communities with limited access to healthy food-have been linked with poor surgical outcomes; however, their impact on orthopaedic trauma outcomes remains unknown. The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence of food desert residency among orthopaedic trauma patients and to investigate the impact of food desert residency on the rate of unplanned reoperation with use of a large, high-quality, prospectively collected dataset with adjudicated outcomes. We hypothesized that orthopaedic trauma patients would reside in food deserts at a higher rate than the general U.S. population and that living in a food desert would be independently associated with an increased rate of unplanned reoperation.

We included all patients from the Aqueous-PREP and PREPARE trials who had documented ZIP codes. The primary outcome was unplanned reoperation within 1 year, and the secondary outcomes included the reasons for reoperation. Residing in a food desert was the independent variable and was defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Census tracts were converted to ZIP codes in order to assign food access for an individual's residence with use of the USDA Food Access Research Atlas.

Of the 2,607 patients included, 1,453 (55.7%) lived in a ZIP code containing a food desert compared with 49% of the U.S. population. Patients residing in a food desert were 42% female, 26.6% non-White, and 64% employed prior to injury, whereas patients not residing in a food desert were 41% female, 15% non-White, and 63% employed prior to injury, all of which was collected via patient self-report. Multivariable analysis demonstrated that living in a food desert was independently associated with 40% higher odds of unplanned reoperation (odds ratio [OR], 1.40; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.06 to 1.85; p = 0.019). This was driven by reoperation for delayed union or nonunion (OR, 1.75; 95% CI, 1.19 to 2.57; p = 0.004) and reoperation for a wound-healing complication (OR, 1.60; 95% CI, 1.01 to 2.54; p = 0.044).

This study found a strong association between residing in a ZIP code containing a food desert and an increased rate of unplanned reoperation, which was primarily driven by delayed union or nonunion and wound-healing complications. Addressing nutritional deficiencies in this population may help to effectively triage the use of health-care resources. Further research should focus on clarifying specific deficiencies and assessing the effectiveness of targeted interventions.

Prognostic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.