Emergency Department Visits Among Children Aged 0-17 by Selected Characteristics: United States, 2019-2020

Details

• Personal Author:
  Peters, Zachary J. ; Ashman, Jill J. ; Cairns, Christopher
• Corporate Authors:
  National Center for Health Statistics (U.S.)
• Description:
  With the disruptions to access and use of care caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency department (ED) visit rates decreased from 2019 to 2020 among children and adolescents (1). The ED visit rate for children under age 1 year in 2020 was nearly one-half of the rate in 2019, and the rate for those aged 1-17 years decreased over the same period (2). This report uses data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) (3,4) to compare ED visits for children aged 0-17 from 2019 to 2020, by age group, sex, and race and ethnicity, and to assess changes in wait time at ED visits.
  
  • The ED visit rates for Black or African American non-Hispanic, White non-Hispanic, and children of other non-Hispanic races and ethnicities were lower in 2020 than in 2019.
  
  • The percentage of visits at which children waited less than 30 minutes until being seen in the ED was higher in 2020 than in 2019 (81% compared with 68%), while the percentage of visits at which children waited 60 minutes or more was lower in 2020 than in 2019 (7% compared with 16%).
  
  • The overall emergency department (ED) visit rate among children aged 0-17 decreased from 48 visits per 100 children in 2019 to 31 visits per 100 children in 2020.
  
  CS339860
  
  Key findings : Data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
  
  • The ED visit rates for both sexes were lower in 2020 than in 2019.
  
  Suggested citation Cairns C, Ashman JJ, Peters ZJ. Emergency department visits among children aged 0-17 by selected characteristics: United States, 2019- 2020. NCHS Data Brief, no 469. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2023. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.15620/cdc:127755.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Child COVID-19 Emergency Service, Hospital Ethnicity Humans Pandemics
• Keywords:
  distance, National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
• Source:
  National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
• Series:
  NCHS Data Briefs
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Statistics ; Report
• Place as Subject:
  United States
• CIO:
  National Center for Health Statistics
• Topic:
  Health Statistics
• Pages in Document:
  8 pdf pages
• Issue:
  469
• Collection(s):
  National Center for Health Statistics
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c9c6ca2ebbdf05cf0e08ffff203970f897dd382b8ea112c09069a8bffff9b6456f29bc8b6b1d6f46ae0f80198d131e88e7501764bd0d43cbea23e1f47e8f15b3
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/127755/cdc_127755_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 441.12 KB ]