Health Assessment (Master's)

HEALTH ASSESSMENT

Children with Special Heath Care Needs

H560

5/2/17

Children with Special Health Care Needs

In our society, there is a concern on the existing cases of children who need special health care which, if not taken serious, may ruin their lives and this will translate to a negative impact on the society. In our discussion, we are going to focus on such cases which have been witnessed in Horry County, in Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. The findings in this discussion may serve as leverage to other researchers in the future, who may be interested to conduct to similar case studies in the region. These findings may give a glimpse to the Americans, and the whole world in general, on how to go about the issue of special health care needs for children.

Children with special health care needs (SHCNs) are the ones who are at a higher risk for medical, developmental, behavioral, chronic or emotional conditions, that need a greater amount of services than the other children (Hagopian et.al, 2014). Children with special heath care needs comprise of those with conditions such as diabetes, asthma, birth defects, developmental disabilities, and mental illness. These children are among the most vulnerable groups in our society, and they do not deserve to be in such conditions.

According to a research conducted by the Maternal and Child Heath Bureau, there is an estimated 15% of children in United States of America with special heath care needs. Families with children with SHCNs spend twice as much in health expenditure than the other families. The Bureau also concluded that it is evident in US that children with special health care needs receive medical and other health related services less likely as compared to other children. Horry County is not the exception in this worrying trend. According to the results of the survey conducted in Horry County in 2016, nearly 1in 5 children in the County has special heath care needs (SHCNs).

The survey found that the ratio of boys to girls with SHCNs in Horry County is 3:2. This show that boys are more affected than the girls. The percentage was also higher among African-Americans (25%) than the other races such as Whites (22%) and Latinos (12%). The percentage of the Asian children with SHCNs was the least (10%). The percentage of SHCNs was higher among children from high income households (20.1%) than children from low income households (17.2%). Among the families in the category of low income households, the percentage of difficulty of affording the medical care for children with SHCNs was higher (35.3%) as compared to families from high income households (9.7%). A more positive result of the survey is that most children with SHCNs are insured and able to access regular medical checkups, at least. However, the survey showed that 1 in every 6 children had difficulty in getting the needed medical services (Chowdhury & P.P., 2016), and overall payment of services.

Children with SHCNs constitute a large group of people with chronic developmental and health issues in United States of America. The needs of this group should therefore be addressed with the utmost seriousness. Medical homes are being recommended by the relevant medical organization in America. There should be a designated pediatrician, gate keeper or appropriate -trained medical personnel who can work closely with parents, in ensuring that the children with SHCNs are being attended to accordingly and receiving treatment. There should be efforts made in detecting children with SHCNs at an early stage so to mitigate or stop this problem effectively. People working in health care should be encouraged to use the necessary screening tools more frequently. This study shows it is limited in Horry County and it should be expanded to improve the quality of health care offered, to children with SHCNs in the County. In conclusion, the survey met its intended purpose by obtaining helpful information that can be used in public policy planning. This can also be beneficial and developmentally - progressive in planning interventions in community health.

References

Chowdhury, P. P. (2016). Surveillance for certain health behaviors, chronic diseases, and conditions, access to health care, and use of preventive health services among states and selected local areas—behavioral risk factor surveillance system, United States, 2012. MMWR. Surveillance Summaries, 65.

Hagopian, L. P., & Hardesty, S. L. (2014). Applied behavior analysis. Retrieved from the Web, 24(11), 2014.