Racial disparities in obstetric anesthesia remain an issue in both the U.S. and the United Kingdom regardless of key differences in the two countries’ healthcare systems, according to analysis recently published in Anaesthesia.
The analysis looked at data from 13,398,421 patients across 16 observational studies in both the U.S. and the U.K.
Here are seven takeaways from the study:
1. Black mothers had lower odds of receiving neuraxial analgesia than most who were white.
2. Black mothers were also more likely to receive general anesthesia for cesarean delivery than their white counterparts.
3. The researchers also found that Asian mothers had lower odds of receiving neuraxial analgesia than those who were white.
4. “You have to recognize that there’s a problem to be able to solve the problem,” co-author James O’Carroll, MD, told Anesthesiology News Nov. 10. “We can’t pretend that we are giving entirely equal anesthesia care to every patient because clearly we aren’t doing so.”
5. Dr. O’Carroll also noted that these disparities have been documented for years across numerous observational studies, yet those reports have not been able to fully identify evidence for the underlying causes of those disparities.
“Where do these biases come from and at what level do they exist?” Dr. O’Carroll said. “Is it an institutional, departmental or individual physician level?”
6. Co-author Shaima El Nour, MD, told Anesthesiology News that the difference in well-documented evidence regarding racial disparities in obstetric anesthesia is “stark,” but the patterns of disparity found in the analysis suggest similar contributing factors.
7. She said that to address these issues, healthcare providers should not make assumptions about what a patient knows or believes about their anesthesia care. She said that physicians should give “every woman before you all the information that’s needed in order to make informed decisions,” adding that some patients may need extra help or attention to provide equitable care, such as spending more time on patient education or to design a plan for labor and delivery.