Researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia reported on a sample of more than 1,600 Pennsylvania children in the foster care system in the May issue of the journal Pediatrics. The findings may help policy makers to better target scarce healthcare resources to subgroups of children most in need of services, such as those in their first year of placement.

"A child with medical problems, developmental problems, or mental health problems is more likely to drift from placement to placement and spend considerable time in the foster care system," said David Rubin, M.D., a general pediatrician at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and primary investigator of this study. "Because mental health and global health are interrelated for children in foster care, we need to consider the overall health needs of these children."

Using a sample of 1,635 children above two years of age, the researchers found that the top 10 percent of mental health service users accounted for 83 percent of the $2.4 million in mental health costs, and that higher physical health care costs also increased the probability of high mental health use. Of those children sampled, 41 percent had two or more foster care placements and five percent had episodic foster care placements during the year observed. The sample was identified from foster care data provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare. Medicaid and child welfare data were successfully linked for all children in the sample population.

Multiple placements and episodic foster care both increased the predicted probability of high mental health service use. Higher physical health care costs also increased the probability of high m
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Contact: Joey Marie McCool
McCool@email.chop.edu
267-426-6070
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
3-May-2004