New York, Oct 20 (IANS): Severely-injured Black, Asian and Hispanic children and adults are less likely than white patients to receive critical helicopter ambulance services, which can make the difference between life and death, according to a study on Sunday.

It is the first such study to highlight disparities in the use of helicopter ambulance transport after severe trauma.

Overall, white adults were twice as likely to be air transported compared to Black adults, 13.5 per cent of Asian adults and 15.9 per cent of Hispanic adults.

White children were 50 per cent more likely to be air transported compared to Black children, 22.4 per cent of Asian children and 24 per cent of Hispanic children.

“Severely injured patients are more likely to survive if they get the right care within the ‘golden hour,’ the critical first hour after the trauma,” said Christian Mpody, lead author of the study at Montefiore Medical Center, New York.

The reality is that current efforts to expand helicopter ambulance programmes have yet to result in equitable care for patients of different races and ethnicities,” Mpody added.

Usually, the decision to dispatch helicopter transport is based on the information received about the patient during the 911 call.

A priority level is then assigned along with a response to dispatch air or ground emergency medical services (EMS) transport.

Additionally, non-medical factors can influence the decision, such as weather conditions and the availability of a helicopter, but race and ethnicity should not be among them, said Dr Mpody.

Researchers assessed hospital transport records for 307,589 adults and 42,812 children who had a severe life-threatening injury and required urgent surgery or ICU admission between 2017 and 2022.

Overall, they found transport via helicopter ambulance was associated with a statistically significant higher rate of survival: 82.4 per cent of patients transported by helicopter ambulance survived compared to 80.6 per cent of those transported by ground ambulance.

They also found statistically significant evidence that race and ethnicity play a role in whether a trauma patient received helicopter transport — particularly among Black patients — and determined that the numbers didn’t improve over the five years of the study.