Using Microeconomic Spending Traits to Inform Trends in Utilization of Cosmetic Procedures by Race and Ethnicity.

Background: Cosmetic plastic surgery in the United States is underutilized by African American and Hispanic populations compared with their White and Asian counterparts. This study evaluated whether microeconomic spending traits as a representation of financial stability can inform trends in cosmetic procedure volumes by racial group.
Methods: Annual volumes for the top five cosmetic surgical and cosmetic minimally invasive procedures by racial/ethnic group from 2012 to 2020 were collected from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons' annual reports. Factor analysis was used to calculate inflexible and flexible consumer spending by racial/ethnic groupings from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' consumer expenditure data. All four factors were calculated across US Bureau of Labor Statistics-defined racial/ethnic groupings and standardized so they could be interpreted relative to each other.
Results: Compared with the other groupings, the White/Asian/other grouping spent significantly more on average for inflexible consumer spending ( P = 0.0097), flexible consumer spending ( P < 0.0001), cosmetic surgical procedures ( P < 0.0001), and cosmetic minimally invasive procedures ( P = 0.0006). In contrast, African American people spent significantly less on average for all four factors (all P < 0.01). For Hispanic people, values were significantly less on average for flexible consumer spending ( P = 0.0023), cosmetic surgical procedures ( P < 0.0001), and cosmetic minimally invasive procedures ( P = 0.0002).
Conclusions: This study demonstrates that inflexible and flexible consumer spending follow trends in utilization of cosmetic surgical and minimally invasive procedures by racial/ethnic groups. These microeconomic spending inequities may help further contextualize the racial/ethnic variation in access to cosmetic surgery.
Competing Interests: The authors have no financial interest to declare in relation to the content of this article.
(Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. on behalf of The American Society of Plastic Surgeons.)