Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Pain Treatment: Evidence From Oregon Emergency Medical Services Agencies

Background: Despite the critical role that Emergency Medical Services (EMS) provides in the health care system, racial/ethnic treatment disparities in EMS remain relatively unexamined. Objective: To investigate racial/ethnic treatment disparities in pain assessment and pain medication administration in EMS. Research Design: A retrospective analysis was performed on 25,732 EMS encounters from 2015 to 2017 recorded in the Oregon Emergency Medical Services Information System using multivariate logistic regression models to examine the role of patient race/ethnicity in pain assessment and pain medication administration among patients with a traumatic injury. Results: Hispanic and Asian patients were less likely to receive a pain assessment procedure and all racial/ethnic patients were less likely to receive pain medications compared with white patients. In particular, regarding the adjusted likelihood of receiving a pain assessment procedure, Hispanic patients were 21% less likely [95% confidence interval (CI), 10%–30%; P
Source: Medical Care - Category: Health Management Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research