Minority Youth Boarded In Massachusetts Psychiatric Emergency Departments Less Likely To Be Admitted

Minority youth in psychiatric crisis who visited an emergency department in Massachusetts from May 2020 through June 2022 were less likely to be admitted for inpatient psychiatric treatment than non-minority youth. Transgender and non-binary youth were 9.1% less likely to be admitted, and they stayed in the emergency department 2.2 days longer than cisgender females. Black youth were less likely to be admitted than their White peers, at 51% compared to 56%. The adjusted difference was 4.3 percentage points.

During the two-year period, there were 4,924 episodes of psychiatric boarding for youth waiting . . .