• Juan Carlos Arango-Lasprilla, Jessica M Ketchum, Lillian Flores Stevens, Fabricio Balcazar, Paul Wehman, Lauren Forster, and Nansy Hsu.
• Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA. jcarangolasp@vcu.edu
• NeuroRehabilitation. 2009 Jan 1;24(1):37-46.

ObjectiveTo examine differences in employment outcomes among Hispanics and Caucasians with Spinal Cord Injuries at one year post-injury.DesignRetrospective study.SettingLongitudinal dataset of the SCI Model Systems.Participants11,424 Individuals diagnosed with spinal cord injury (1369 Hispanics and 10055 Caucasians) that were enrolled in the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center (NSCISC) database and interviewed during their scheduled one-year post-injury follow-up evaluation between 1975 and 2006.Main Outcome MeasuresEmployment status (competitively employed, unemployed and other).ResultsAfter adjusting for age, gender, marital status, education level, employment status at admissions, cause of injury, category of neuro-impairment, and ASIA impairment scale, race/ethnicity has a significant effect on employment status at 1 year post-injury. Specifically, the odds of unemployment versus employment were 1.864 times greater for Hispanics than for Caucasians (95% CI = 1.478, 2.349) and the odds of unemployment versus other were 1.980 times greater for Hispanics than for Caucasians (95% CI = 1.625, 2.413).ConclusionsRacial disparities do exist in successful employment after 1 year post SCI, particularly between Caucasians and Hispanics. Future research should focus on what factors contribute to this disparity, along with forming new education and rehabilitation strategies to improve return-to-work outcomes for Hispanics after SCI.

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