Social Risk Factors Influence Pediatric Emergency Department Utilization and Hospitalizations

To characterize the association of children’s social risk factors with total number of emergency department (ED) visits or hospitalization and time to first subsequent ED or hospitalization. This was a retrospective cohort study from 2017 to 2021 of patients seen at the general pediatric clinic with >1 social risk factor screening documented per visit. Negative binomial or Poisson regression modeled ED utilization and hospitalizations, as a function of total number of risk factors or each unique risk factor. Time-varying Cox models evaluated differences between those who screened positive and negative, controlling for demographic and clinical covariates. Overall, 4674 patients (mean age 6.6 years, 49% female, 64% Hispanic, 21% Black) were evaluated across 20927 visits. Children with risk factors had higher rates of ADHD, failure to gain weight, asthma, and prematurity compared with children with no risk (all p