People with disabilities faced pandemic triage biases
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When COVID-19 patients began filling up ICUs throughout the country in 2020, health care providers faced difficult decisions. Health care workers had to decide which patients were most likely to recover with care and which were not so resources could be prioritized.
But a new paper from the University of Georgia suggests that unconscious biases in the health care system may have influenced how individuals with intellectual disabilities were categorized in emergency triage protocols.
The state-level protocols, while crucial for prioritizing care during disasters, frequently allocated resources to able-bodied patients over ones with disabilities, the researchers found.
When COVID-19 patients began filling up ICUs throughout the country in 2020, health care providers faced difficult decisions. Health care workers had to decide which patients were most likely to recover with care and which were not so resources could be prioritized.
But a new paper from the University of Georgia suggests that unconscious biases in the health care system may have influenced how individuals with intellectual disabilities were categorized in emergency triage protocols.
The state-level protocols, while crucial for prioritizing care during disasters, frequently allocated resources to able-bodied patients over ones with disabilities, the researchers found.
The study, published in Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, found that some states had emergency protocols saying that individuals with brain injuries, cognitive disorders or other intellectual disabilities may be poor candidates for ventilator support. Others had vague guidelines that instructed provide