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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Eriko O. Wada, MPP¹, Michael Cousineau, DrPH², and Gregory Stevens, PhD². (1) Keck School of Medicine, Division of Community Health, University of Southern California, 1000 S. Fremont Avenue, Building A-7, 4th Floor, Room 7409, Alhambra, CA 91803, 6264574025, ewada@usc.edu, (2) Family and Community Medicine, University of Southern California, 1000 S. Fremont Ave, Alhambra, CA 91803

Context: California and local communities have sought to expand eligibility and health coverage to all children through privately funded local children's health initiatives (CHIs). Their goal is to target the 800,000 uninsured children and link them to available health insurance programs. Launched in July 2003, Los Angeles County's CHI has enrolled more than 42,000 children in its Healthy Kids program designed to cover children ineligible for Medicaid and SCHIP. With an increasing need for efficiency, understanding how to maximize resources is a high priority.

Objective: To assess the deployment of outreach resources and conduct of outreach activities to maximize the number of uninsured children and families contacted and ultimately enrolled in available public health coverage programs.

Study Design: Comparison of the distribution of outreach resources in relation to uninsured children, outreach contacts, and applications completed across the county's 26 health districts.

Main Outcome Measures: Rates of outreach contacts and applications completed, per 1,000 uninsured children.

Results: More than 271,000 outreach contacts and 43,000 applications for public insurance programs resulted from the outreach/enrollment efforts funded by Healthy Kids. County-wide, nearly one contact was made for every uninsured child. By health district, the contact rate ranged from 62 to 2,700 per 1,000 uninsured children. County-wide, 157 applications were completed for all programs per 1,000 uninsured children, varying by district from 43 to 308.

Conclusion: The data available in this study provide a new way of planning based on evidence of need and taking into account geographic variation in need within a county.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand a new method of assessing investments in outreach and enrollment.
• Examine the distribution of outreach investments and resources in relation to need and outcomes in Los Angeles County.
• Discuss the value of such data in future investments.

Keywords: Children's Health, Research

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered