Scoping Review Highlights Racial Gaps in Pediatric Eczema Care: Daily Dose

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Patient Care brings primary care clinicians a lot of medical news every day—it’s easy to miss an important study. The Daily Dose provides a concise summary of one of the website's leading stories you may not have seen.

On April 7, 2025, we reported on a study published in Pediatric Dermatology that was designed to provide an updated summary of published research on disparities within pediatric atopic dermatitis (AD) in the US.

The study

Researchers conducted a systematic review across MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase (Elsevier), and Cochrane databases for studies of pediatric patients (aged 18 years or younger) that highlighted at least 1 pediatric AD disparity published from January 2021 through May 2024. A total of 53 studies were included in the analysis.

The findings

Results showed that compared with non-Hispanic White children, American Indian/Alaska Native, Hispanic, and Asian children had approximately 1.2-, 1.4-, and 2.45-fold higher odds of developing AD, respectively. Across multiple studies, children of color — particularly Black children — experienced an absolute increase in AD prevalence ranging from 2% to 10%, with prevalence increasing by an additional 1% to 4% over time.

Children of color also faced a 4% to 24% greater association with AD and were 1.5 to 3.8 times more likely to require hospitalization or urgent care for the condition. Black children with AD were found to have 1.24 times higher odds of poor disease control and were 2.5 to 4.1 times more likely to experience early-onset and persistent disease compared with their White peers.

Authors' comments

"With an increasing focus on health disparities research, particularly within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, an update on disparities within pediatric AD is needed. Examining the results of these studies can help point us to interventions that aim to reduce disparities and allow us to identify current knowledge gaps in disparities within pediatric AD."

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