The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #57163

Rick Mayes, PhD, Department of Political Science, University of Richmond, 28 Westhampton Way, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA 23173, 804-289-8529, bmayes@richmond.edu and Farasat Bokhari, PhD, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, 140 Earl Warren Hall, MC 7360, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-7360.

OBJECTIVES: (1) To provide a profile of children with diagnosed ADHD, which shows how they differ from children without the disorder in terms of their economic, family, and demographic characteristics. (2) To provide a county-level profile of the area variation in psychostimulant use in the U.S.

METHODS: (1) A nationally representative, cross-sectional analysis of 12,910 individuals younger than 18 years old in the 1999 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). (2) We separated 3,030 U.S. counties into two categories of “low” and “high” use of ADHD drugs (based on data from the Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA), and then compared them on the basis of their socio-demographic, economic, educational, and medical characteristics.

RESULTS: (1) Children with parent-reported ADHD are more likely than children without ADHD to be: male, white, from the south, lighter at birth, from smaller families (“only children”), and to live in step, adoptive, foster or “other” family arrangements and, thus, not with their biological mothers. (2) There is a significant difference in the profile of counties that are above or below the national median rate of psychostimulant use (defined as grams/per 100K population). Compared to counties below the median level, counties above the median level have significantly greater population, higher per-capita income, lower unemployment rates, greater HMO penetration, more physicians per capita, and higher students-to-teacher ratios. The two sets of counties also differ significantly in their demographic composition.

Learning Objectives:

(
• To add to the knowledge base of ADHD and identify various sociodemographic and economic factors that could be independent predictors of ADHD. Also, (
• to analyze the variation in psychostimulant use across the U.S. and identify any correlations between counties being "high" or "low" users of psychostimulants and their sociodemographic, economic, educational, and health system characteristics.

Keywords: Child/Adolescent Mental Health, Children With Special Needs

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.