Study: Race, insurance status affect trauma survival rate

A new study has found that trauma victims who are white and have insurance have higher survival rates than African Americans, Hispanics and the uninsured, even when the severity of injuries are the same (Source: “A racial divide,” Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 21, 2008).

The authors of the study, which appeared in the most recent edition of Archives of Surgery, found that lack of insurance was the biggest predictor of poor outcomes.

While minorities are more likely than whites to be uninsured, Hispanics with insurance were still 51 percent more likely to die after being treated for a trauma wound than whites who had insurance and African Americans with insurance had a 20 percent higher mortality rate than insured whites.

Researchers theorized that perhaps minorities had a higher rate of preexisting conditions that complicated treatment. Another possibility is that more African Americans and Hispanics were treated at under-resourced trauma centers that have worse patient outcomes.