Are Black Children Receiving Worse Medical Care?

Happy Black History Month, now let’s talk about healthcare disparities.

Working as a resident in Brooklyn, I was usually taking care of African American children in our emergency room. Caucasian children presented infrequently and when they did, they came in on UPPA baby strollers and part of a population responsible for Brooklyn’s gentrification.

Caucasian patient encounters always took longer than our standard encounters. Were more questions asked? Was more attention demanded? Would this mother actually pass out if I attempted an IV line a second time on her baby? Were we, health care providers, treating Caucasian patients differently in the heart of Brooklyn?

George Floyd’s death in 2020 motivated me to do more research on the topic and here’s what was found.

Black children were less likely to receive diagnostic imaging in the emergency room when compared to non-Hispanic White children.

Mandarin et al. studied 44 emergency departments and 13 million visits to the EDs. Diagnostic imaging was defined as an X-ray, ultrasound, CT and MRI. Imaging was performed in 33.5% of visits by non-Hispanic White children as compared with 24.1% of visits by non-Hispanic Black children. The…