• Stephen P Wall, Evelyn S Ha, Michael E R Habicht, Haneefa Wawda, Guy L Merchant, Susan L Ettner, and William R Mower.
• UCLA Emergency Medicine Center, USA. stephen.wall@nbhn.net
• Acad Emerg Med. 2005 Sep 1; 12 (9): 862-8.

ObjectivesPrior evidence suggests that physicians may alter process of care based on race/ethnicity. The objective of this study was to determine whether race/ethnicity predicts whether a patient receives computed tomography of the head (head CT) during evaluation of blunt head injury.MethodsThis was a nonconcurrent cohort study set in an emergency department of a Level 1 trauma center in a university medical center. Consecutive patients presenting with blunt head injury from January 2000 to December 2000 were enrolled. The main outcome measure was whether or not a patient received head CT during evaluation of blunt head injury.ResultsThe unadjusted probability of receiving head CT was similar among minority (33.9%; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 30.0% to 38.1%) and non-Hispanic white patients (36.4%; 95% CI = 33.5% to 39.3%). After adjusting for important clinical and socioeconomic predictors, minority patients had a probability of receiving head CT 0.84 times as high as that of non-Hispanic whites, but this result was not statistically significant (95% CI = 0.67 to 1.09).ConclusionsMinority and non-Hispanic white patients may not have significantly different rates of receiving head CT during evaluation of blunt head injury. A multicenter prospective study is necessary to confirm these preliminary findings.

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