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

Details

• Personal Author:
  Christoper Cairns, Jill J. Ashman, and Zachary J. Peters
• 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.
  
  Key findings : Data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
  
  • 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.
  
  • The ED visit rates for both sexes were lower in 2020 than in 2019.
  
  • 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%).
  
  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.
  
  CS339860
  
  
• Subjects:
  Child COVID-19 Emergency Service, Hospital Ethnicity Humans Pandemics
• Series:
  NCHS Data Briefs
• Document Type:
  Journal Issue
• Genre:
  Statistics
• Place as Subject:
  United States
• 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 ]