Black children are more likely than white children to be physically restrained in pediatric emergency rooms, according to a study from the New England region of the United States.
Data collected from 2013 through 2021 from hospitals of the Yale-New Haven Health System showed that use of physical restraints was rare overall. Among the 189,259 emergency room visits by Black and white children ages 5 to 16, restraints were employed in fewer than half of one percent.
But Black girls were 2.5 times more likely than white girls to be restrained, while Black boys were 69% more likely to be restrained than white boys, the researchers reported on Monday in JAMA Pediatrics.
Restraint was more common in boys overall, but racial disparities were more pronounced among girls, study leader Dr. Destiny Tolliver of Boston Medical Center noted.
Previous studies in U.S. adults have found that Black people are more often physically restrained in emergency rooms than whites.
The new findings show that “though we don’t always think about these disparities in girls, they’re not only present, but actually even more pronounced than they are with boys,” Tolliver said.
Black children are often perceived as older and less innocent than similarly aged white children, Tolliver’s team noted in its report.
“Many parents, especially Black parents, worry about their children being perceived as dangerous, and have seen the ways that perception can lead to harsh treatment,” Tolliver said.
Similar patterns are likely elsewhere in the United States, she said.
“Our … findings align with racialized and gendered disparities in schools and in the criminal legal system that have been studied at the national level, and I think it is likely that the same drivers impact physical restraint around the country as well,” Tolliver said.
Read more about racial health disparities on Reuters.com
This newsletter was edited by Will Dunham. Additional reporting by Shawana Alleyne-Morris.