Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #108613

Chi-Chi Liao, MS, Department of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, 677 Huntington Ave, 7th floor, Boston, MA 02115, 617-987-0986, cliao@hsph.harvard.edu, Michael L. Ganz, MS, PhD, Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Kresge 615, Boston, MA 02115, and Hongyu Jiang, PhD, Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, 655 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115.

The substantial changes in the demography of population in the community and in the states and epidemiology of mental health conditions in children have occurred in recent years making mental health services an increasingly important component of medical care. High levels of reported out-of-pocket costs for Medicaid eligible children suggest that Medicaid fails to meet families' needs in obtaining care.

An opportunity came to play in 1997 when Congress authorized the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to improve mental health access for uninsured children in near poor families (100-200% FPL) and to reduce mental health disparities. All SCHIPs provide comprehensive scope of benefits including the full range of mental health services including substance abuse treatment.

This paper examine the impact of SCHIP program on the mental health utilization, expenditures, and source of funding.

We have found that whether children are eligible for SCHIP is significant predictor for whether children utilize mental health services controlling for children's characteristics, mother's characteristics, insurance coverage and state level characteristics. Children eligible for SCHIP after SCHIP implementation have more visits than children without SCHIP coverage before SCHIP implementation among the children with family income under 200% FPL. The proportion of total expenditure paid out-of-pocket has been decreased after SCHIP. Overall mental health expenditures have decreased since 1996.

We conclude that SCHIP has successfully increased the mental health utilization for children in low income families. The public payment is still the major source of funding for mental health services for children in low income families.

Learning Objectives:

• This paper will assess and evaluate the impact of Nation-wide state children health insurance program on the utilization, expenditures and source of funding for mental health services for children by 1996-2000 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey.

Keywords: Mental Health, Children's Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.