CHOP Researchers Find Racial, Neighborhood Disparities in Pediatric Cardiac Arrest

A child’s race and neighborhood could influence not only the likelihood of having a cardiac arrest but also survival and recovery, according to researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). In an abstract presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2023 in Philadelphia, the researchers found that Black children were more than four times as likely to experience out-of-hospital cardiac arrest as white or Hispanic children and were 26% less likely to survive hospital discharge.

The researchers also found that the incidence of cardiac arrest was higher in neighborhoods of lower socioeconomic status, whereas survival was higher in neighborhoods of higher socioeconomic status.

To study the impact of race and neighborhood on pediatric cardiac arrest, the researchers used the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES) database to analyze nontraumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest among children under the age of 18 between 2015 and 2019. To gauge a neighborhood’s socioeconomic status (SES), they used a SES risk score that incorporated race, ethnicity, household income, high school graduation rates, and unemployment rates.

Of 6,945 cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, 33% occurred in Black children, 11% in Hispanic children, and 31% in White children. They also found that 41% of cases occurred in high-risk neighborhoods and that Black children had lower odds not only of survival but also of neurologically favorable survival compared to White children.

“While much more work is needed to determine why we see these disparities, previous studies have shown that Black children receive less CPR after cardiac arrest. CPR is an important determinant in cardiac arrest survival,” said Cody Gathers, MD, lead investigator and Critical Care fellow at CHOP. “The persistence of these disparities demonstrates a need for increased resources for these programs in higher-risk communities.”

Learn more in this press release from the American Heart Association.