Patterns of Hospital-Based Pediatric Care Across Diverse Ethnicities: The Case of Pneumonia

Authors

Elmer L. Washington, Aunt Martha's Youth Service Center
Jay J. Shen, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Ralph Bell, Governors State UniversityFollow
Clementine Coleman, Governors State University
Liping Shi, Governors State University

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2004

Publication Title

Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Undeserved

Volume

15

Issue

3

First page number:

462

Last page number:

473

Abstract

Few studies have evaluated racial disparities with respect to process and outcome measures for pneumonia. We evaluated disparities with respect to process measures in addition to clinical and financial outcome measures in a pediatric population from 0 to 18 years of age. The data showed that minority populations were admitted at younger ages and were more likely to be admitted through the emergency department than their white counterparts. Substantial variation exists with respect to patterns of care and outcomes for pneumonia in pediatric patients among different ethnic/racial groups. Differences in outcomes may be associated with several factors, including variations in quality of care across different hospital settings, characteristics related to disease severity among different ethnic groups, and other unidentified factors. Further research is needed to clearly define how differences with respect to quality of care, access to care, disease severity, and care-seeking behaviors contribute to differences in outcomes across different ethnic groups.

Keywords

Children—Hospital care; Discrimination in medical care; Ethnicity; Disparities; Health services accessibility; Outcomes; Outcomes assessment (Medical care); Pneumonia; Pneumonia in children; Process; Race

Disciplines

Epidemiology | Health Services Research | Pediatrics | Race and Ethnicity

Language

English

Permissions

Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the item. Publisher policy does not allow archiving the final published version. If a post-print (author's peer-reviewed manuscript) is allowed and available, or publisher policy changes, the item will be deposited.

Repository Citation

Washington, E. L., Shen, J. J., Bell, R., Coleman, C., Shi, L. (2004). Patterns of Hospital-Based Pediatric Care Across Diverse Ethnicities: The Case of Pneumonia. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Undeserved, 15(3), 462-473.