 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Michael Lee Ganz, PhD, MS, Maternal & Child Health, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Kresge 615, Boston, MA 02115, 617-432-2382, mganz@hsph.harvard.edu
Background: The current mental health care system for children is fragmented, poorly coordinated, and approaching crisis. Substantial changes have occurred recently making knowledge of children’s mental health service use increasingly important.
Objective: To develop and describe a method for identifying children with mental health conditions (MHC) using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), to describe the epidemiology of MHC among children, and to estimate the relationship between MHC and selected child factors.
Design/Methods: We link the 1996–1998 MEPS to the 1995–1997 National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS) and identify children with MHC using diagnosis codes.
Results: The pooled MHC prevalence is 8.3%, corresponding to about 6.8–7.8 million children per year. The pooled prevalence for ADHD is 3.4%, for affective disorders is 1.8%, anxiety is 1.3%, and developmental problems is 1.1%. Older, white, non-Hispanic, male children, and those covered by public insurance are more likely to have MHCs. Children whose mothers had a MHC were also more likely to have a MHC. There is some evidence that family size is inversely related to MHC. Children with MHC are significantly more likely to incur expenses and to have higher total charges/expenditures and family out-of-pocket expenses.
Conclusions: Although the MEPS-based prevalence estimates are lower than other published estimates, the MEPS offers promise as a children’s mental health services research tool. Methods to increase the sensitivity of identifying children with MCH need to be explored.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Mental Health Care, Child Health Promotion
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.