Study Finds Disparities in Pediatric Safety Events at Hospitals; Black, Hispanic Children More Likely to Experience Adverse Health Outcomes

Black and Hispanic children who were hospitalized in the United States in 2019 were more likely to experience post-operative hemorrhage, respiratory failure, or sepsis, and blood-stream infections than white pediatric patients, according to a study of pediatric safety events. The study, “Disparities in Racial, Ethnic, and Payor Groups for Pediatric Safety Events in US Hospitals,” published in the March 2024 Pediatrics (published online Feb. 12) analyzed data from more than 5.2 million hospitalizations collected by the 2019 Kids’ Inpatient Database. The database includes a 10% sample of newborns and 80% sample of other pediatric discharges from 4,000 US hospitals, and more than 80% of patients were younger than 1 year of age. Disparities were greatest in post-operative sepsis for Black patients and post-operative respiratory failure for Hispanic patients (vs. white patients). The largest disparity for Medicaid-covered (vs. privately insured) patients was in post-operative sepsis. Plausible factors cited include structural racism in the U.S. healthcare system, clinician bias, insufficient cultural responsiveness, communication barriers, or impaired access to high-quality and timely healthcare. The authors suggest additional work to identify modifiable factors and design targeted interventions for patients experiencing disparities in pediatric safety events. 

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The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 67,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.