The Association of the Child Opportunity Index with Emergency Department Presentations for Pediatric Poisonings: A Case-Control Study.

Objective: To examine the relationship between the Child Opportunity Index (COI) and unintentional poisonings in a geographically diverse pediatric population.

Study design: We conducted a retrospective, case-control study of children ≤ 6 years of age who had emergency department encounters for poisonings from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2021. Data were obtained from the Pediatric Health Information System database. Poisonings were categorized as related to prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, drugs of misuse, or nonmedicinal substances. We estimated multivariable conditional logistic regression models to examine the association of the COI with each poisoning type.

Results: Among 49 789 emergency department encounters for poisonings, the most common poisoning category was prescription medications (28.3%). Compared with patients with very low COI, patients with very high COI were more likely to present for prescription medication (aOR 1.15 [95% CI, 1.01-1.31]) or over-the-counter medication poisoning (aOR 1.37 [95% CI, 1.18-1.59]). Conversely, patients with very high COI were less likely to have poisonings secondary to drugs of misuse (aOR 0.82 [95% CI, 0.67-0.99]). Patients with high COI were also less likely to have poisonings due to a nonmedicinal substance compared with patients with very low COI (aOR 0.83 [95% CI, 0.73-0.93]).

Conclusions: Different pediatric poisoning types were associated with a patient's COI, possibly reflecting socioeconomic characteristics of a child's environment. While poison prevention strategies should be employed uniformly to maximize impact, our findings highlight variation in poisoning risks related to a child's environment and support the use of the COI for future research into mechanisms to strengthen further poisoning prevention strategies.