 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Rhonda Sarnoff, DrPH, MSPH, Partnership for the Public's Health, California Public Health Institute, 505 14th St., Oakland, CA 94612, 510-302-3317, rsarnoff@partnershipph.org and Dana Hughes, DrPH, Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California at San Francisco, 3333 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94143.
Objectives: To investigate the prevalence of health insurance coverage during the first year of life and identify characteristics of mothers of uninsured infants to develop strategies to improve infant coverage. Methods:Data from the 2001 Maternal and Infant Health Assessment (MIHA)were analyzed. MIHA is an annual statewide representative post-partum mail/telephone survey of mothers with live births in California between February and May 2001. The prevalence of uninsured infants was analyzed according to sociodemographic characteristics of the mother. Odds ratios for the infant being uninsured are reported, adjusted for family income, maternal age, education, marital status, and other potential confounding factors. Results: In the overall study sample, 8.7% of the infants were uninsured; a significantly higher percent of low-income infants (13.7%) were uninsured. The mother's post-partum and prenatal insurance coverage, age, and family income were associated with a higher likelihood of an infant's lack of insurance, after adjustment for confounding variables. A large majority (88.1%) of uninsured infants were from low-income families; 60% were born to mothers with Medicaid prenatal coverage. Conclusion: The probem of uninsured children begins in the first year of life. Significant expansions in infant health coverage could be achieved by improving the continuity of Medicaid enrollment from pregnancy through infancy. Automatic one-year enrollment of infants born to women enrolled in Medicaid during pregnancy could potentially reduce by one-half the proportion of infants who are uninsured.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Health Insurance, Infant Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.