Citation

Chamberlain JM, Joseph JG, Patel KM, Pollack MM. Pediatrics 2007; 119(6): e1319-24.

Affiliation

Department of Pediatrics, George Washington University School of Medicine, Washington, DC, USA. jchamber@cnmc.org

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, American Academy of Pediatrics)

DOI

10.1542/peds.2006-2309

PMID

17545362

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Racial/ethnic disparities in health care delivery have been well described, but little is known about such disparities for children who seek emergency care. The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that severity-adjusted emergency department pediatric admission rates are associated with race/ethnicity. METHODS: Secondary analyses were conducted of an established database of 16 emergency departments that participated in a national study to validate the Pediatric Risk of Admission II score, which is used to measure severity of illness. Patients were randomly selected by the coordinating center from daily emergency department visit logs. Crude and severity-adjusted admission rates were compared among the 3 most common races/ethnicities: white, black, and Hispanic. Adjusted admission rates were calculated by using the standardized admission ratio, which was calculated by dividing the observed admissions by the predicted admissions, when predicted was calculated from the Pediatric Risk of Admission II score.

Language: en