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Updated: Feb 16, 2026
Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
Published on: February 2, 2017
Family structure and children's unmet health-care needs
Katherine Irvin1, Farhan Fahim1, Saeed Alshehri1
1Department of Health Administration and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.
Insights
Children in single-mother families face higher unmet health-care needs. Interventions must consider family structure and insurance coverage for equitable access.
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Health Services Research
- Sociology
Background:
- Children's health-care access is influenced by family structure.
- Disparities in healthcare access exist across different family types.
- Understanding these disparities is crucial for improving child health outcomes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess unmet health-care needs among children in diverse family structures.
- To identify risk factors associated with unmet health-care needs.
- To inform tailored interventions for equitable healthcare access.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from the 2011/2012 National Survey of Children's Health.
- Compared unmet health-care needs across single-mother, two-parent stepfamily, and two-parent biological/adoptive families.
- Analyzed racial/ethnic and income-related disparities, and the impact of insurance coverage.
Main Results:
- Children in single-mother families had the highest unmet health-care needs (10.4%).
- Black children in two-parent biological/adoptive families were more likely to have unmet needs.
- Noncontinuous insurance coverage significantly increased unmet health-care needs across all family types.
Conclusions:
- Significant differences in unmet health-care needs exist based on family structure.
- Racial/ethnic and socioeconomic factors contribute to healthcare disparities.
- Tailored interventions are necessary to ensure continuous and adequate healthcare for all children.
Abstract:
This study assessed children's unmet health-care needs within different family types (two-parent biological/adoptive, two-parent stepfamily, and single-mother family type) using data from the 2011/2012 National Survey of Children's Health. Findings indicate that 10.4% of children in single-mother family types had unmet health-care needs compared to 8.7% of children from a two-parent stepfamily and 5.3% for those from two-parent biological/adoptive families. Further analyses revealed racial/ethnic disparities with Black children from two parent-biological/adoptive families being 1.54 (95% confidence interval 1.13, 2.05) times more likely to have unmet health-care needs, while Hispanic children were less likely to have unmet health-care needs relative to their white counterparts. Children from lower income two-parent families had a higher likelihood of unmet health-care needs. The noncontinuous insurance coverage was a risk factor for increasing unmet health-care needs across all three different family types. These findings show major differences in unmet health-care needs among children living in different family structure types. It is recommended that interventions for increasing access to care need to be tailored differently across various family types in order to achieve continuous and sufficient health-care services for our children.
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