Despite overall low pediatric head injury mortality, disparities exist between races

To continually improve quality of care, it is important for centers caring for children with head injury to evaluate their overall outcome and that among diverse patient groups.

Data on children with head injuries were extracted from the National Trauma Data Bank of the American College of Surgeons and our local trauma registry. Unadjusted mortality, as well as stratified analysis and logistic regression modeling, was used to evaluate overall and race-specific mortality.

There were 13,363 children in the National Trauma Data Base and 3111 in our database included. Our overall mortality rate compared favorably with the national data (3.2% vs 6.8%, P < .05). Our local data, however, showed a significant difference in mortality between white and African American (AA) children (2.2% vs 5.3%, P < .05), which was not identified in the national data. After stratification, the disparities by race persisted. Finally, multivariate regression modeling revealed that AA race was an independent predictor of mortality among our patient population, with an odds ratio of 3.1 (95% confidence interval, 1.2-7.8).

Despite excellent outcomes for children with head injuries, we have uncovered unsettling inequities between AA and white children. These findings support the need to evaluate outcomes among specific groups to identify disparities that require further careful investigation.