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Pediatricians Serving Inner City, Minority Neighborhoods Make Fewer Parent Referrals to Key Community-based Health ServicesEMBARGOED until 8 a.m. EDT Sunday, April 29, 2001Contact: Dan Page (email)Phone: (310) 794-2265 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Pediatricians serving inner city areas, the poor and minority communities report making few parent referrals to key community-based childhood health services, according to a new AAP/UCLA study detailed today at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies. The survey of American Academy of Pediatrics members showed that over a 12-month period most pediatricians had referred at least one parent to child development programs (83 percent), lactation support programs (77 percent), parenting classes (61 percent) and community based parent support groups (56 percent). However, a significant subset of those surveyed -- pediatricians reimbursed predominantly by Medicaid, those who serve minority families and those who practice in the urban inner city -- made few or no referrals to these services. "Without access to these and other key health services for pediatric providers to make referrals to, the outlook for the long-term health and overall development of many children in vulnerable urban and minority communities is potentially jeopardized," said Dr. Neal Halfon, a UCLA professor of pediatrics and public health. Many pediatricians, particularly those who did make referrals, reported a shortage of key resources for young children, such as programs for children with developmental problems, and providers of developmental diagnostic and treatment services. These results indicate that pediatricians caring for children with the greatest health risks, and with the need for a more intensive array of preventive and health promoting services, cannot provide the same kind of access to these services as pediatricians caring for children from more middle-class communities. "The findings indicate that the child health infrastructure in many communities is not sufficient to meet the demand for services that many families with young children need and that pediatricians want to provide," said Halfon, director of the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities. Lynn Olson, co-director of the Department of Practice and Research for the American Academy of Pediatrics, noted that many factors combine to create these disparities. "We need to better understand how program availability and awareness, cost, transportation and other factors contribute to these troubling findings," she said. Among specific findings:
The survey asked the pediatricians to report the proportion of parents of all patients younger than 3 years old referred to each of the following programs/classes in the course of a year: lactation support programs, parenting classes, community-based parent support groups and child development programs. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Gerber Foundation funded the study. The mission of the 55,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics is to attain optimal physical, mental and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults. The mission of the private Gerber Foundation is to enhance the quality of life of infants and young children in nutrition, care and development. The Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities, directed by Halfon, is a joint program of the UCLA School of Public Health, the UCLA School of Medicine and UCLA's affiliated medical centers. The Center offers prevention-focused programs to improve individual and community-based health services for children; train health providers to meet today's child and family needs; and improve public policies that affect children and families. In addition to Halfon and Olson, researchers involved in the survey included Harvinder Sareen, Miles Hochstein, and Moira Inkelas, all of UCLA; and Karen O'Connor of the American Academy of Pediatrics. < Back to Archive 2001 << Back to Press Releases |
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