Cover: Access to Health Care for Young Children in the United States

Access to Health Care for Young Children in the United States

Published in: Child Rearing in America: Challenges Facing Parents of Young Children / Edited by Neal Halfon, Kathryn Taaffe McLearn and Mark A. Schuster (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002), Chapter 10, p. 293-319

Posted on RAND.org on January 01, 2002

by Paul W. Newacheck, Miles Hochstein, Kristen S. Marchi, Neal Halfon

The health care needs of children, and of young children in particular, reflect their underlying age-specific health needs. Current literature provides a useful foundation for understanding the health needs of young children and the ability of young children to get access to needed care. Yet much of the existing literature is dated or uses less than ideal age categorizations. In this analysis, which focuses specifically on children from birth to age 3, the authors attempt to build on previous studies by examining the role of race and ethnicity, income, and insurance status in determining access to care using new national data on access to a broad range of health and developmental services.

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