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The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) was passed in 1986 to prevent insurance status from influencing the provision of emergency care. Investigators used the National Trauma Data Bank (2002–2006) to examine the relation between mortality and insurance status in children (age, ≤17 years) who had sustained blunt or penetrating trauma.
Of 174,921 patients, 56% had commercial insurance, 30% had public insurance, and 14% were uninsured. In crude univariate analysis, uninsured children had higher mortality rates than those with commercial or public insurance (odds ratio, 2.97). In adjusted analysis (controlled for sex, race, age, injury severity, and injury type), mortality risk remained highest for uninsured children (OR, …