researchers are pointing to an alarming medical study about fatal surgeries among black youth saying the data sheds light on why doctors and hospitals should to do more to confront their own biases the study published in the journal pediatrics found that black children are 34 times more likely to die within a month of surgery and 12 times more likely to develop postoperative complications after both elective and emergency surgeries than white children the study which examined data on 172549 children who underwent surgery between 2012 and 2017 attributed some of the disparities to greater preoperative comorbidity burdens among black patients citing racial and structural inequalities orthopedic operations and appendix removal were among the most common surgeries according to the study researchers said there were few deaths overall but disparities were undeniable 23 black children died within 30 days of surgery compared to 13 white children more white coats and black lives health care workers say racism is a pandemic too despite ongoing improvements in surgical care and apparent rarity of postsurgical mortality racial and ethnic disparities in postoperative morbidity and mortality remain significant and persistent researchers wrote our overall aim was not just to highlight traditional wellknown racestratified surgical outcomes but specifically to assess whether poor baseline health alone explains why aa children are more likely to die in surgical care several past studies have shown that black patients regardless of age are generally more likely to suffer postsurgical complications and die after surgery than their white peers the study said citing poverty and lack of health care as two possible explanations stock photogetty images olubukola nafiu the lead author of the study said the results showed that healthy children generally had very low rates of death and complications after surgery but nafiu said it was surprising to see the vast differences in mortality rates and complications based only on race in the past researchers hypothesized that black patients tend to be sicker than their white peers hence the higher mortality rates but nafius study specifically looked at young patients who were healthy ahead of both emergency and elective surgeries more coronavirus updates cdc issues school guidance on mask bullying so what my team and i did was to flip the script a little bit by looking at a relatively healthy cohort of children he said we didnt expect this but even in this relatively healthy cohort of children being african american was associated with higher mortality rates compared to being white the study doesnt explain the driving forces behind the disparities but nafiu said socioeconomic background insurance status and hospital quality of care could all play a part we know for sure that when it comes to african americans it tends to take a longer time for them to be seen by doctors and it takes a longer time for them to get referred nafiu said so you may have two who look relatively healthy on the day of surgery but the duration of the