# Detecting and Understanding Disparities in Pediatric Safety Events for Hospitalized Children

> **NIH AHRQ R03** · CHILDREN'S RESEARCH INSTITUTE · 2023 · $57,543

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract: Despite decades of focus on reducing medical errors, children continue to suffer
substantial harms in hospital settings, and pediatric safety events in hospitals disproportionately affect children
of color and those who live in poverty. While there has been work in pediatrics to categorize and address
safety events, there is a critical need in our understanding and approaches to eliminate racialized and socio-
economic disparities in pediatric safety events. The long-term goal is to ensure equitable care for all
hospitalized children. The overall objectives are to leverage existing pediatric safety measures to detect and
understand drivers of disparities in select inpatient pediatric safety events. The Chin framework for advancing
health equity in patient safety, which is informed by patient and family engagement, will be used, and consists
of identifying health disparities, understanding potential mechanisms that drive them, and then designing
interventions to eliminate disparities. In direct response to Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s
(AHRQ) recently released Special Emphasis Notice “Interest in Health Services Research to Advance Health
Equity” NOT-HS-21-041, a mixed-methods study to advance the nation’s goal of achieving equity in the
delivery of healthcare services by reducing disparities in select pediatric patient safety events is proposed
through these two specific aims: 1). Detect disparities in pediatric safety events among hospitalized
children by race/ethnicity and/or socioeconomic status. Pediatric safety outcomes will include the AHRQ
pediatric quality indicators (PDIs) and adverse medical device event (AMDE) rates in pediatric hospitalizations.
Both the Kids’ Inpatient Database and Inpatient Essentials database will be evaluated for disparities in PDIs or
ADMEs. 2). Understand mechanisms and identify potential interventions for eliminating racialized and
socio-economic disparities in pediatric safety events. Selected pediatric safety events will be identified and
in-depth, qualitative analysis via focus groups of hospital staff/clinicians and patients/families will be conducted
to identify potential mechanisms of disparities and interventions to address these disparities. This aim will be
informed by Flores and Ngui’s comprehensive, patient-and-family centered framework for understanding
disparities in pediatric safety events. The research proposed in this application is innovative because the
disparities in pediatric safety events will be analyzed using established measures of pediatric safety combined
with patient/family engagement to comprehensively understand potential drivers of selected measures. The
proposed research is significant because it is expected to provide a more detailed understanding of select
disparities in pediatric safety events and identification of potential interventions to address these disparities.
These results are expected to have profound positive impact by identif...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10661525
- **Project number:** 5R03HS028484-02
- **Recipient organization:** CHILDREN'S RESEARCH INSTITUTE
- **Principal Investigator:** Kavita Parikh
- **Activity code:** R03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** AHRQ
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $57,543
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-07-07 → 2025-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10661525

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10661525, Detecting and Understanding Disparities in Pediatric Safety Events for Hospitalized Children (5R03HS028484-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10661525. Licensed CC0.

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