Another hat tip, and this time to the wonderful Alison Stevens at PAIN, who shared this article with us. The news item, which comes from Reuters, tells us that a new study in the US indicates that pediatricians who read a fictional case report of a toddler with a leg fracture were more likely to suspect abuse if the child was described as coming from a lower-income family. Interestingly, the child’s race did not seem to have any bearing on this assumption.
The article goes on to say that, “When the child’s family was lower-income, 48 percent of pediatricians thought there’d been abuse, versus 43 percent when the family was higher-income”. We are not sure, given the relatively narrow margin, whether this is a material finding, although we do think that stereotypes can play a dangerous part in misdiagnosis.
The source for this study, (Journal of Pediatrics, online January 5, 2012) can be found at the bottom of the news article.
Such statistics only reenforce steriotyping and judgementalism. and those workers trained in the welfare of childten I asume are trained in a narrow minded and neggative way. based on sweping across the board false belief systems.
every situation should be based on evidence and evidence alone.
One of my children was abused and grossly neglected. The evidence was so very clear. yet no one has answerd for their collective role in my child suffering more than he was already.
Evidence Evidece Evidence.