Abstract
Purpose :
Black patients are disproportionally represented in emergency room visits and eye injuries. We sought to categorize this disparity across age groups and conditions.
Methods :
Using a multi-stage keyword search, injuries from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System between 2003-2022 were characterized by type as well as race and age of the patients. Paired t-tests by year were used for inter-group comparison. A random sample of 500 patients classified as having an eye injury was manually verified: the method had 97% accuracy on this sample.
Results :
Black patients represented 15% of 6,868,289 injuries and 17% of 160,818 ophthalmic injuries (p<0.001). Racial disparity in ophthalmic injuries was more prevalent at the extremes of age: Black children under 10 were 19% more likely than not Black patients to present with eye injuries, patients aged 70-80 – 25% more likely, and aged 80-90 – 53% more likely (all p<0.001). However, Black patients between 20 and 70 presented with eye injuries on average 8% more often than not Black patients. Interestingly, 48% of all recorded eye injuries occurred in patients below age 20, which is consistent with 44% of all recorded injuries occurring in this age range. Inequities were especially prominent in burn injuries (Black patients were 19% more likely than not Black patients to present with burns to the eyes, compared with 13% greater likelihood for all injuries overall). Finally, while Black patients at the extremes of age were more likely than not Black patients to present with corneal injuries, Black patients ages 20-70 presented with such injuries less often, and over all ages, there was no significant difference between the injury proportions.
Conclusions :
These results show racial inequities in eye injuries, especially at the extremes of age where people may be more vulnerable to negligence of others. Investigating injury context would refine health equity interventions.
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, WA, May 5-9, 2024.