Field Placement: Department of Health Services, County of Los Angeles -- Children’s Health Outreach Initiative in the Maternal, Child & Adolescent Health Programs
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Preceptor: Wendy Schiffer, MSPH
Student Name: Michael Ching
Year: 2002

Ensuring Access to Care for Children in Low-Income Families: An Evaluation of Child Health Insurance Outreach Activities in the County of Los Angeles and Proposals to Expand Child Health Insurance Coverage

For my field studies, I was involved in two projects within the Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health unit of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS). These projects sought to expand health insurance coverage among children in Los Angeles County.

The first project was to design an evaluation of DHS-funded child health insurance outreach activities for low income families (e.g., Medi-Cal, Healthy Families). I designed data collection forms that would be used by outreach workers to track their encounters with clients. I analyzed a pilot test of these forms and performed subsequent extensive revisions to the forms. I helped to design a training session for outreach workers to use these forms in their work. I also revised evaluation objectives and monthly progress reports for each outreach contractor. Finally, I designed database queries to generate automatic evaluation and progress reports.

My second project was to help determine ways for DHS to obtain additional funding to expand health insurance enrollment among Los Angeles County children. Toward this end, I cowrote two proposals to the California Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board to fund health insurance expansions in the County of Los Angeles. The first proposal was to increase health insurance outreach by tying outreach to a mobile asthma service provider and expanding the geographical area covered by the provider. The second proposal was to provide health insurance coverage to children ages 6-18 whose parents make less than 300% of the federal poverty level. When I left DHS, both proposals were likely to be funded.

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