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Racial disparities in use of analgesia in emergency departments have been previously documented. Further work to understand the causes of these disparities must be undertaken, which can then help inform the development of interventions to reduce and eradicate racial disparities in health care provision.

To evaluate racial differences in analgesia administration, and particularly opioid administration, among children diagnosed as having appendicitis.

Repeated cross-sectional study of patients aged 21 years or younger evaluated in the emergency department who had anInternational Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revisiondiagnosis of appendicitis, using the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey from 2003 to 2010. We calculated the frequency of both opioid and nonopioid analgesia administration using complex survey weighting. We then …