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Family Income Impacts Children's Health
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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Improving children's health across the United States means not only improving access to the health care, but improving the conditions in which many children are raised, Egerter said.
"We need to change the conversation about health in this country," Egerter said. "We need solutions beyond the medical care system to improve the health of children in this country. Children need the right physical and social conditions to help them be healthy kids who develop into healthy adults. Focusing on health care and coverage is important, but we need to recognize that there is more to health than health care," she said.
Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, agreed that household income is key.
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"A lot of detailed information in this compelling report distills down to a simple and rather common sense message: the fewer social and economic advantages enjoyed by a household, the worse the health of the children being raised there," Katz said. "Babies born to households deficient in education and income are more likely to die in infancy and less likely to experience optimal health," he added.
This report is a tale of trickle-down disparities, Katz said. "Disadvantaged parents raise children disadvantaged from the start with regard to both health and survival," he said.
The problem of disparities is clear, but the solution is much less so, Katz said.
"Can we get all children born in the U.S. to experience a uniform opportunity for survival and optimal health? Perhaps, but only with real dedication to a mission that will be neither quickly nor easily accomplished," he said.
More information
To see the full report, visit theRobert Wood Johnson Foundation.
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Copyright © 2008 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Last updated 10/8/2008
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SOURCES: Oct. 7, 2008, teleconference with Paula Braveman, M.D., director, Center on Social Disparities in Health, University of California, San Francisco; Sue Egerter, Ph.D., co-director, Center on Social Disparities in Health, University of California, San Francisco; Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor, medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, and co-founder, Physicians For A National Health Program; David L. Katz, M.D., M.P.H., director, Prevention Research Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.; Oct. 8, 2008, report, America's Health Starts With Healthy Children: How Do States Compare?, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
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