Health and Safety - Health Care
Immunizations
The proportion of preschool-age children immunized against communicable and potentially dangerous childhood diseases—including diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (whooping cough), known collectively as DTP; polio; and measles—dropped during the 1980s but rose significantly during the 1990s. By 2002 82% had received four doses of DTP, 90% had received three doses of poliovirus vaccine, 93% had received haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine (Hib), 92% had received measles vaccines, 90% had received three doses of hepatitis B vaccine, and 81% had received varicella (chickenpox) vaccine. More than three quarters of these children received the vaccinations in combined series. Children living below the poverty line and African-American children are slightly less likely than the general child population to be immunized. (See Table 5.8.)
In 1994 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) implemented the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program, which provides free or low-cost vaccines
TABLE 5.6
| Percentage of high school students who felt sad or hopeless, who seriously considered attempting suicide, who made a suicide plan, and who attempted suicide, by sex, race, ethnicity, and grade, 2003 | |||||||||||||||
| Felt sad or hopeless* | Seriously considered attempting suicied† | Made a suicide plan† | Attempted suicide†¶ | Suicide attempt required medical attention | |||||||||||
| Category | Female % |
Male % |
Total % |
Female % |
Male % |
Total % |
Female % |
Male % |
Total % |
Female % |
Male % |
Total % |
Female % |
Male % |
Total % |
| * Felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for 2 weeks in a row that they stopped doing some usual activities. | |||||||||||||||
| † During the 12 months preceding the survey. | |||||||||||||||
| § Non-Hispanic. | |||||||||||||||
| ¶ One or more times. | |||||||||||||||
| SOURCE: Adapted from "Table 16. Percentage of High School Students Who Felt Sad or Hopeless, Who Seriously Considered Attempting Suicide, and Who Made a Suicide Plan, by Sex, Race/Ethnicity, and Grade," and "Table 18. Percentage of High School Students Who Actually Attempted Suicide and Whose Suicide Attempt Required Medical Attention, by Sex, Race/Ethnicity, and Grade," in "Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance—United States, 2003," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Surveillance Summaries: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, vol. 53, no. SS–02, May 21, 2004, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/SS/SS5302.pdf (accessed September 16, 2004) | |||||||||||||||
| Race/ethnicity | |||||||||||||||
| White§ | 33.3 | 19.6 | 26.2 | 21.2 | 12.0 | 16.5 | 18.6 | 13.9 | 16.2 | 10.3 | 3.7 | 6.9 | 2.4 | 1.1 | 1.7 |
| Black§ | 30.8 | 21.7 | 26.3 | 14.7 | 10.3 | 12.5 | 12.4 | 8.4 | 10.4 | 9.0 | 7.7 | 8.4 | 2.2 | 5.2 | 3.7 |
| Hispanic | 44.9 | 25.9 | 35.4 | 23.4 | 12.9 | 18.1 | 20.7 | 14.6 | 17.6 | 15.0 | 6.1 | 10.6 | 5.7 | 4.2 | 5.0 |
| Grade | |||||||||||||||
| 9 | 35.7 | 21.0 | 28.0 | 22.2 | 11.9 | 16.9 | 20.9 | 14.8 | 17.7 | 14.7 | 5.8 | 10.1 | 3.9 | 3.1 | 3.5 |
| 10 | 36.9 | 22.7 | 29.7 | 23.8 | 13.2 | 18.3 | 19.5 | 13.1 | 16.3 | 12.7 | 5.5 | 9.1 | 3.2 | 2.1 | 2.6 |
| 11 | 35.9 | 22.1 | 28.9 | 20.0 | 12.9 | 16.4 | 17.9 | 14.4 | 16.2 | 10.0 | 4.6 | 7.3 | 2.9 | 2.0 | 2.4 |
| 12 | 32.6 | 22.0 | 27.4 | 18.0 | 13.2 | 15.5 | 16.2 | 13.7 | 14.9 | 6.9 | 5.2 | 6.1 | 2.2 | 1.8 | 2.1 |
| Total | 35.5 | 21.9 | 28.6 | 21.3 | 12.8 | 16.9 | 18.9 | 14.1 | 16.5 | 11.5 | 5.4 | 8.5 | 3.2 | 2.4 | 2.9 |
to children at participating private and public health-care provider sites. Eligible children, including children on Medicaid, children without insurance or whose insurance does not cover vaccinations, and Native American or Alaskan Native children can receive the vaccinations through their primary care physician. Children not covered under the program but whose parents cannot afford vaccinations can receive free vaccines at public clinics under local programs. According to the CDC, in fiscal year 2003 the VFC program spent $975 million on vaccines. The program served about 41% of the childhood population in 2002.
The World Health Organization reported in State of the World's Vaccines and Immunizations, Geneva, Switzerland, 2002) that developed nations, including the United States, generally have among the highest immunization rates in the world. Global immunization rates for DTP hovered around 70% from the mid-1990s through 2001. Immunization rates for the developed world for the same time period were ten to twenty percentage points higher. Only about 50% of children in Sub-Saharan Africa received the DTP immunizations, the lowest rate in the world.
Physician Visits
Children's health depends upon access to and usage of medical care. Based on household interviews of a sample of the civilian noninstitutionalized population, the National Center for Health Statistics found that in 2001 54.6% of children under age eighteen visited the doctor between one and three times, 26.1% saw the doctor between four and nine times, and 7.6% saw the doctor ten or more times. (See Table 5.9.) But 11.6% of children did not see a doctor at all. Poor children have less access to health care than nonpoor children. In 2001 only 78.3% of children from poor families were treated in a doctor's office, compared with 86% of children from nonpoor families.
User Comments Add a comment…