Multiple teams of researchers are reporting on some largely unrecognized racial health inequities at the American Society of Anesthesiologists meeting in Philadelphia.

For example, severely injured Black, Asian and Hispanic children and adults are less likely than white patients to receive potentially life-saving helicopter ambulance services, according to U.S. data.

“Current efforts to expand helicopter ambulance programs have yet to result in equitable care for patients of different races and ethnicities,” study leader Christian Mpody, MD, PhD, of Montefiore Medical Center in New York said in a statement.

Using data from more than 900 trauma centers, his team analyzed hospital transport records for 307,589 adults and 42,812 children who required urgent surgery or ICU admission for life-threatening injuries between 2017 and 2022.

All of the injuries had occurred more than 15 miles (24 km) from the nearest trauma hospital. Overall, 82.4% of patients transported by helicopter ambulance survived compared with 80.6% of those transported by ground ambulance. 

After accounting for insurance status and other factors that might influence the decision to call for a helicopter, the researchers found that rates of air transport were 25.4% among white adults versus 12.6% among Black adults, 13.5% among Asian adults and 15.9% among Hispanic adults.

Air transport rates were 33.6% among white children, 20% among Black children, 22.4% among Asian children and 24% among Hispanic children.

Separately, a review of medical records presented at the meeting found that Black patients are less likely than white patients to receive multiple pain management options after surgery.

Multimodal analgesia, which uses multiple types of pain medication to reduce pain, is more effective at treating postsurgical pain than a single medication alone, particularly after complex surgeries such as lung or abdominal cancer surgery and hernia repair, the researchers noted.

The researchers reviewed data on 2,460 white patients and 482 Black patients treated in their hospital’s intensive care unit after complex, high-risk surgeries. They found that Black patients were 29% less likely to receive multimodal anesthesia using a combination of four drugs than white counterparts.

“We know that multimodal analgesia provides more effective pain management with less need for opioids, which are highly addictive," study leader Niloufar Masoudi, MD, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore said in a statement. "It should be standard practice, especially in high-risk surgical patients.”