October 1, 2014 – Prevention for Kids

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Anchor lead:  Why don’t parents get as much preventive healthcare for their kids as they can? Elizabeth Tracey reports

If you’re a parent, have you had your child appropriately screened and vaccinated throughout their lifetime?  A recent Journal of the American Medical Association study asserts the answer is quite often no, with many children not assessed for developmental milestones, having seen a dentist, or being up to date on immunizations.  Tina Cheng, a pediatrics expert at Johns Hopkins, comments.

Cheng: Though most kids in this country have health insurance, there’s still some that don’t have health insurance.  And then there’s many steps they have to go through to get the services.  They have to be enrolled in insurance even if they’re eligible, they have to have a place to go, and a place that will provide the services that they need, they have to go, and then once they get to the pediatric provider they need to receive the services.  So a lot of time we think it should be so simple, you just go and get these services and everybody should get their shots, but there’s actually a lot of steps and there’s a lot of barriers along the way.   :31

Cheng says identifying those barriers is key to healthier kids.  At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.