Medical misadventures as errors and mistakes and motor vehicular accidents in the disproportionate burden of childhood mortality among Blacks/African Americans in the United States: CDC Dataset, 1968-2015.
Holmes L, Enwere M, Mason R, et al. Medical misadventures as errors and mistakes and motor vehicular accidents in the disproportionate burden of childhood mortality among Blacks/African Americans in the United States: CDC Dataset, 1968-2015. Healthcare (Basel). 2024;12(4):477. doi:10.3390/healthcare12040477.
Structural racism in the healthcare system and beyond contributes to disproportionally high mortality for Black children. In this study, researchers compared mortality rates of Black and white infants using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) subclass Misadventures to Patients During Surgical and Medical Care, where the authors defined misadventures as "the fatal medical errors that occur among healthcare providers, such as the slipping of a scalpel or administration of an incorrect dosage or drug." During the study period of 1968 - 2015, results show Black infants were at significantly higher risk of dying from medical misadventure than were white infants.