Child Abuse Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Child Abuse, including details on family violence, examinations, long-term effects, psychiatrics disorders.

The epidemiology of infant injuries and alarming health disparities.

Falcone RA, Brown RL, Garcia VF

Division of Pediatric and Thoracic Surgery, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH 45229-3039, USA. richard.falcone@cchmc.org

PURPOSE: Injury epidemiology is the underappreciated foundation of injury prevention and control strategies. Given the substantial disparity of infant injury-related mortality between African Americans (AA) and whites in our region, we sought to better understand the epidemiology of infant injury-related mortality rates. METHODS: Our trauma database was reviewed for all infant injuries over a 10-year period. The mortality rates were analyzed based on race, mechanism, and health insurance type. RESULTS: From 1995 to 2004, 1270 infants were identified. Sixty-nine percent were white, 26% AA, and 5% were other. Overall mortality was 4.8%. There were significant disparities in mortality comparing AA to whites: overall, 9.6% vs 2.8%*; abuse, 15% vs 4%*; suffocation, 100% vs 55%* (*P < .05). Although 75% of AA vs 40% of whites were insured by Medicaid, when separated by insurance type, the disparity in mortality rates between races remained significant. CONCLUSIONS: African-American infants have 3.5 times increased risk of death from preventable injuries compared to white infants. This disparity persists despite controlling for type of health insurance, a surrogate for socioeconomic status. Understanding these disparities and developing injury-prevention programs targeting high-risk mechanisms of injury such as abuse and suffocation among AA is critical toward eventually eliminating these preventable deaths.

Published 8 January 2007 in J Pediatr Surg, 42(1): 172-6; discussion 176-7.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2005-2008 Child Abuse Research Today. All Rights Reserved.