PEACH Impact

Demographic Data

To verify race and ethnicity designations, approximately 1600 parents were approached at multiple sites (primary care, specialty care, emergency department, inpatient) and asked to report their child’s race and ethnicity, which was then compared to the information contained in the child’s medical record. While the accuracy of ethnicity was 96%, for race it was 88%, with medical records misclassifying 12.8% of parent-reported African American pediatric patients.

Visitor Exceptions

Results of the NICU visitor exception survey revealed that families perceived to be White  were 1.75 times more likely than families perceived to be African American to receive visitor exception approval. In the PICU, they were 2.75 times more likely.

Security Calls

A review of security calls found variation by race and ethnicity with security being called to intervene with African American patients 5-6% more than would be anticipated based on the demographics of patients at the health system. However, since this difference is within the range of error found through the race and ethnicity verification study, we were unable to draw conclusions from these data.

Assessment of Pediatric Pain

In two prior studies, individuals were shown a video of a 5-year-old child undergoing blood collection. When told the child was a boy, they rated the child as experiencing more severe pain. Building off this work, medical students were shown the same video clip. Differences in ratings by gender were not identified. It is unknown whether this null finding reflects gender-focused efforts in medical education, preexisting differences in attitudes among the samples, or insufficient power to detect an association. Read about the study here.