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American Academy of Pediatrics Community Access to Child Health (CATCH) Program: a model for supporting community
1Division of Community Pediatrics, University of Southern California School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Insights
Pediatric organizations advocate for medically underserved children and their doctors. Both the US and UK face healthcare access barriers, despite differing insurance systems, requiring community-based solutions.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Health
- Public Health Policy
- Community Medicine
Background:
- Advocacy for medically underserved children and pediatricians is a core commitment of major pediatric organizations.
- Healthcare access barriers exist in both the US and UK, despite differing insurance systems.
- Some children remain disconnected from healthcare systems, even with universal access, often due to social non-participation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To describe the American Academy of Pediatrics Community Access to Child Health (CATCH) infrastructure.
- To support practicing community pediatricians in addressing healthcare access barriers for children.
- To explore opportunities for international collaboration in community pediatrics.
Main Methods:
- Review of advocacy efforts by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
- Analysis of healthcare access barriers in the US (insurance) and UK (utilization despite universal access).
- Description of the CATCH infrastructure and its role in supporting pediatricians.
Main Results:
- Significant numbers of children in the US lack adequate health insurance.
- Even with universal healthcare in the UK, some children do not connect with available services.
- Families not engaged in broader social systems are often unknown to health and government agencies.
- Poverty contributes to environmental hazards, health risks, and risky behaviors in both nations.
Conclusions:
- Both the US and UK face challenges in ensuring all children access necessary healthcare.
- Community-based programs and pediatrician support are crucial for improving child health outcomes.
- International collaboration can advance community pediatrics and address global child health disparities.
Abstract:
Advocacy on behalf of children who are medically underserved and the pediatricians who care for them has been a long-standing core commitment of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Although different in etiology, barriers to adequate health care exist in both nations. In the United States, almost 18 million children have either no health insurance or inadequate coverage, whereas in the United Kingdom, parents can, in most cases, readily enroll their youngsters in a universal health insurance program that is not dependent on employers or employment.(1) However, despite universal access to health care in the United Kingdom, as in the United States, there are infants and children who do not regularly use or otherwise connect to available health care delivery systems. Many of these families are not participants in other social systems (eg, church, school, voting, employment, property ownership/rental) and therefore are not known to governments, agencies, authorities, or health care professionals. Both nations have citizens living in extreme poverty with its associated environmental and health hazards and tendencies to health risk behaviors. Both the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the American Academy of Pediatrics have strategies and programs to address these issues and to support pediatricians who work in their communities to improve the lives of children. The following describes the American Academy of Pediatrics Community Access to Child Health infrastructure that supports practicing community pediatricians in these efforts and opportunities to develop collaborative international endeavors to advance the practice of community pediatrics.