U.S. Kids Not Getting Needed Health Care

Report finds youngsters worse off than adults, and the biggest gaps are found in preventive care.

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter
Wednesday, October 10, 2007; 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Kids in the United States aren't getting the health care they need, especially in the area of prevention, a new study shows.

"Children in the U.S. receive only 46 percent of the care that they should be getting, so they receive worse care than adults in this country, who get 55 percent of needed care," said study author Dr. Rita Mangione-Smith, a researcher at Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute and an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle.

"This is a real wake-up call for the American public," added study senior author Elizabeth McGlynn, associate director of Rand Health. "It's easy to be complacent when you don't look at things, but we've shown that care for kids is way below what [we] would hope to see, and I hope that the attention that we can bring to bear from this study will cause us to take action that can improve care for kids today. We will, as a country, will be better off if we take serious action."

Both Smith and McGlynn spoke at a teleconference on Wednesday to announce the results.

The findings, which are in the Oct. 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, come on the heels of a presidential veto of the SCHIP bill, which would provide health-care coverage to millions of additional children in this country.

"[The study] is just one more reason why the veto should be overridden," said Dr. Lisa Simpson, director of the Child Policy Research Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "The study clearly shows that quality of care for children far too often falls short of what it could be. And, particularly for preventive care, what are the barriers to preventive care? Not having health insurance is a well-documented barrier."

"And the bill contains some of the most important provisions for quality health care for children in the history of this country," Simpson added.

Information on the quality and safety of adult health-care in the United States has been well-documented, but information on children's health care has been scant, the study authors stated.