Racial and ethnic disparities in the management of acute pain in US emergency departments: Meta-analysis and systematic review.

Objective: This review aims to quantify the effect of minority status on analgesia use for acute pain management in US Emergency Department (ED) settings.

Methods: We used the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methodology to perform a review of studies from 1990 to 2018 comparing racial and ethnic differences in the administration of analgesia for acute pain. Studies were included if they measured analgesia use in white patients compared to a racial minority in the ED and studies were excluded if they focused primarily on chronic pain, case reports and survey studies.