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American Public Health Association
133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition
December 10-14, 2005
Philadelphia, PA
 APHA 2005
 
Session: Initiatives to Expand and Evaluate Access to Care for Children in California (Medical Care Section Solicited Session #2)
3298.0: Monday, December 12, 2005: 2:30 PM-4:00 PM
Oral
Initiatives to Expand and Evaluate Access to Care for Children in California (Medical Care Section Solicited Session #2)
While public health insurance programs have expanded in California, nearly 10% of children in California remain uninsured. 22 counties in the state have developed or are planning Healthy Kids programs, local efforts to enroll children in insurance programs who are ineligible for Medi-Cal or SCHIP (Healthy Families). Four counties have implemented a Healthy Kids program and three have been the focus of evaluations to understand their impact on access, quality and costs. In this session, we will examine participation rates in Medi-Cal and Healthy Families by county and the contributions of these local Healthy Kids programs to expanding coverage overall. Next, we will synthesize the results of recent evaluation studies of county Healthy Kids programs in California, and the implications of these results for expansion towards a statewide program to cover all children. The session will bring together researchers focusing on recent initiatives at the local and state level to assure that all children in California have access to high quality health care. Focus will be studies in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Los Angeles. A framework for studying a statewide initiative for California, based on the experiences of these evaluations, will also be presented.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this session, session participants will be able to: 1. Describe the current status of children's health insurance in California, particularly for undocumented children; 2. Describe the status of current legislative efforts in California to cover all children and understand the process of legislation development, the challenges and barriers to its passage, and the potential outcomes; 3. Synthesize the research findings from three evaluation of local county-based children's health insurance programs, and understand the implication of these evaluations for a statewide initiative. 4. Provide feedback and comments on the design of an evaluation of the statewide initiative to cover all children in California.
Organizer(s):Michael R. Cousineau, DrPH
Moderator(s):Michael R. Cousineau, DrPH
2:30 PMStatus of children’s health insurance programs in California  [ Recorded presentation ]
Gregory D. Stevens, PhD, Michael Cousineau, DrPH
2:50 PMExpanding health coverage for children in San Mateo County  [ Recorded presentation ]
Dana C. Hughes, DrPH, Embry Howell, MSPH, PhD, Genevieve Kenney, PhD, Jennifer Sullivan, Martha Kovac
3:10 PMImpact of the Healthy Kids program of Santa Clara County, California on the medical and dental care of children  [ Recorded presentation ]
Christopher Trenholm, Embry Howell, MSPH, PhD, Dana Hughes, DrPH
3:30 PMSteps towards universal coverage for children in Los Angeles County: Early findings from the LA County Children's Health Initiative evaluation  [ Recorded presentation ]
Ian Hill, Michael Cousineau, DrPH, Moira Inkelas, PhD
See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement and author's information.
Organized by:Medical Care
CE Credits:CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing, Oral Health

The 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition (December 10-14, 2005) of APHA