Large Health Gaps Persist Between White and Minority Children
Children's Defense Fund
Black and Latino children continue to lag behind White children in nearly all areas of health care despite the establishment of national goals nearly a decade ago to close such disparities.
According to a new report released today by the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), Improving Children's Health: Understanding Children's Health Disparities and Promising Approaches to Address Them, the lack of health insurance is a major factor in the racial and ethnic discrepancies in health and health care access.
Black children under the age of five are almost three times as likely as young White children to be hospitalized for asthma.
"Every child deserves the chance to grow up healthy.
It is a moral scandal that 9 million children in our rich nation lack comprehensive health and mental health care," CDF President Marian Wright Edelman said.
Because of the long-lasting impact of childhood conditions, our success in reducing health disparities among children is crucial not only to improving the health of every child, but to the nation's health."
CDF's exploration of health disparities between minority and White children paid special attention to the gap between minority and White children of similar incomes and health insurance status.
