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Delays in Children's Preventive Health Services During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Kimberley H Nguyen1, Kimchi Nguyen2, Devika Lekshmi1
1Department of Public Health & Community Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA.
Insights
Pandemic-related closures and COVID-19 fears caused over a quarter of parents to delay children's preventive health services. Catch-up strategies are crucial for essential pediatric care and vaccinations.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Health
- Public Health
- Epidemiology
Background:
- COVID-19 pandemic led to stay-at-home orders and fear of exposure.
- This resulted in significant delays in children's preventive health services.
- Missed services risk delayed health problem detection and vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the prevalence of missed, delayed, or skipped preventive health services for children.
- To identify factors associated with these service disruptions.
- To understand the reasons behind missed, delayed, or skipped preventive health services.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from the Household Pulse Survey (n=37,064), a nationally representative survey.
- Survey fielded from April 14 to May 10, 2021.
- Analyzed prevalence, associated factors, and reasons for service disruptions in households with children.
Main Results:
- Approximately 25% of parents reported children missed, delayed, or skipped preventive check-ups.
- Delays were more common in households with higher education, more children, and remote/no formal education.
- Key reasons included limited appointments (42.9%), COVID-19 exposure concerns (42.2%), and provider closures (29.0%).
Conclusions:
- Physician office closures and COVID-19 exposure fears caused over 25% of parents to delay pediatric preventive services.
- Coordinated efforts are essential to facilitate rapid catch-up of essential preventive services and routine immunizations.
Background And Objectives:
Stay-at-home orders, social isolation recommendations, and fear of COVID-19 exposure have led to delays in children's preventive health services during the pandemic. Delays can lead to missed opportunities for early screening and detection of health problems, and increased risks for outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. Understanding prevalence of and reasons for missed, delayed, or skipped preventive health services is important for developing strategies to achieve rapid catch-up of essential health services.
Methods:
Using the Household Pulse Survey (n=37,064), a large, nationally-representative household survey fielded from April 14 to May 10, 2021, we examined prevalence of households with children who have missed, delayed, or skipped preventive health services, and factors associated with and reasons contributing to missed, delayed, or skipped preventive health services.
Results:
About one-quarter of parents had children who missed, delayed, or skipped preventive check-ups in the past year. Delays in children's preventive health services were more common among respondents with higher education, households with greater numbers of children, and children who learned remotely or did not participate in formal education. Main reasons attributed to delayed preventive health services were limited appointments at health providers' offices (42.9%), concern about COVID-19 exposure at health providers' offices (42.2%), and closed health providers' offices due to the pandemic (29.0%).
Conclusions:
Physician office closures and concern about COVID-19 exposure resulted in over one-quarter of parents delaying preventive services for their children since the pandemic began. Coordinated efforts are needed to achieve rapid catch-up of preventive services and routine vaccines.
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