Chronic school absenteeism directly affects educational outcomes while reducing school funding and reimbursement. Asthma is a prevalent disease associated with chronic absenteeism. This quality improvement project demonstrated classroom seat time preserved through use of school-based health centers (SBHC). The project also highlights the…

Background: Federal nutrition education initiatives ("MyPlate") intend to facilitate healthful eating behaviors in families; however, little is known about how minoritized students and caregivers perceive adherence to MyPlate guidelines or perceptions of importance of eating in alignment with guidelines. Purpose: Study aims included: 1)…

As value-based care continues to expand, more children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) will be treated by accountable care organizations (ACOs), provider organizations seeking to improve population health while reducing costs. To inform ACO strategies for children with ASD, this study compared health care expenditures of children insured by a…

House Republicans passed a bill that would dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the current health care insurance plan provided to low income families. The non-Partisan Congressional Budget Office reviewed the legislation, and has determined that if some portion of the legislation is also passed by the Senate, it would leave 14 million more…

The Commonwealth has the second most expensive child care market in the United States. Families routinely pay upwards of $20,000 a year for care for their young children. However child care workers make very low wages and are leaving the workforce in droves because they can make more at other jobs. Child care providers are struggling to keep their…

Health insurance policy is a current topic of concern for the United States. The classroom game discussed here provides students with a thorough understanding of some of the policy options under debate, in addition to demonstrating the classic problem of adverse selection. Students received probabilities of encountering a variety of medical…

The world population is expected to reach 9.2 billion by the year 2050. Farmers are faced with the daily challenge of how to feed these people while availability of land and water is dwindling. The growth rates of global agricultural production and crop yields have slowed in the last couple of years, raising fears that the world may not be able to…

Purpose of the Study: This paper is a report of a study of the Assistance, Support, and Self-health Initiated through Skill Training (ASSIST) randomized control trial. The aim of this paper is to understand whether participating in ASSIST significantly changed the out-of-pocket (OOP) costs for family caregivers of Alzheimer's disease (AD) or…

School nurses played a key role in Maine's school-located influenza vaccination (SLV) clinics during the 2009-2010 pandemic season. The objective of this study was to determine, from the school district perspective, the labor hours and costs associated with outside-clinic coordination activities (OCA). The authors defined OCA as labor hours spent…

Background: Influenza is a cause of considerable morbidity in England, particularly among children. A total of 39% of all influenza-attributable general practitioner consultations and 37% of all influenza-attributable hospital admissions occur in those aged under 15 years. Few studies have quantified the impact of influenza outbreaks on families.…

There is an expanding body of research on exercise intervention for multidisciplinary rehabilitation of people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS). Most of this research focuses on people with mild/moderate MS who are ambulatory. As the costs of care increases with increasing disability, it is important to evaluate the evidence for interventions in…

This year's "America's Children in Brief" highlights selected indicators by metropolitan status to give the reader a closer look at how well-being is influenced by the type of community in which children and their families live. The "Brief" also provides a snapshot of the overall well-being of America's children through the…

Background: To quantify the costs and consequences of managing phenylketonuria (PKU) in the UK and to estimate the potential implications to the UK's National Health Service (NHS) of keeping patients on a phenylalanine-restricted diet for life. Methods: A computer-based model was constructed depicting the management of PKU patients over the first…

This study aims to analyze the ambulatory visit frequency and medical expenditures of the general elderly population versus the elderly with intellectual disabilities in Taiwan, while examining the effects of age, gender, urbanization and copayment status on ambulatory utilization. A cross-sectional study was conducted to analyze data from 103,183…

Public policy surrounding newborn screening is in flux. New technology allows more screening for more diseases at lower cost. Traditional criteria for target diseases have been criticized by leading health policymakers. The example of newborn screening for Krabbe disease highlights many of the dilemmas associated with population-based screening…