No evidence for US racial disparities in hospital treatment of asthma
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Jun 30, 2009
MedWire News: There are no longer any significant racial/ethnic disparities regarding the inpatient treatment of asthma attacks in the USA, results of a study suggest.
Writing in the journal Chest, Dr Carlos Camargo, from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, USA, and team explain that the results of the only previous US study into racial disparities in inpatient asthma management found that Black and Hispanic children received poorer care at hospital discharge than their White counterparts.
However, they add that this previous study was conducted in 1989–1990 at a single center.
To gain a more up to date insight into the issue among a larger group of patients, the researchers studied data on 1232 children and adults who received inpatient treatment for acute asthma at one of 30 hospitals in 22 US states.
Of the 562 children included in the study, who were aged between 2 and 17 years, 39% were White, 42% were Black and 19% were Hispanic. Of the 670 adults, who were aged between 18 and 54 years, 44% were White, 44% were Black and 12% were Hispanic.
The researchers found that there were no significant racial/ethnic differences in the type of medications received by children or adults or the length of their hospital stay.
Further analysis revealed that just 37% of Hispanic children received an asthma action plan at hospital discharge compared with 60% of White children and 63% of Black children.
However, the significance of this difference fell markedly after accounting for factors such as hospital admissions for asthma in the past year, medication use prior to admittance, socioeconomic status and hospital admission location.
Dr Camargo and team conclude: “We did not identify racial/ethnic disparities in the inpatient treatment and outcomes for children or adults with acute asthma.
“At hospital discharge, Hispanic children were less likely to receive an asthma action plan compared to White or Black children, possibly due to language or socioeconomic differences.”
