Is CPR Less Likely For Minorities?

A provocative new study suggests that people who collapse from cardiac arrest are much less likely to get CPR if they are in poor black neighborhoods than in better off white neighborhoods.

More than 300,000 people a year collapse when their hearts stop at home or other locations. Most don't survive, but CPR can double their survival chances. The researchers say their study shows that more CPR education is needed in poor neighborhoods.

Current CPR advice calls for quick, hard chest compressions rather than mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

The study of 14,000 people in 29 cities was published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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