TY - JOUR T1 - Potential Determinants of Poor Disease Outcome in Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis JF - The Journal of Rheumatology JO - J Rheumatol SP - 1895 LP - 1896 VL - 35 IS - 9 AU - AHMED SOLOMON AU - PATRICK H. DESSEIN AU - BERENICE F. CHRISTIAN Y1 - 2008/09/01 UR - http://www.jrheum.org/content/35/9/1895.abstract N2 - To the Editor: We read with interest the report by Suarez-Almazor and colleagues1 on the disparities in the time to initiation of disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARD) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) under public care as compared to those under private care, seen at rheumatology clinics in Texas. The authors reported that the median disease duration at the time of initial DMARD therapy was 1.5 years in the public care setting and 0.5 years in the private care setting (p < 0.0001) and that ethnicity (White vs Non-White) was more important than being under public care (surrogate marker of… ER -