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220691 Effect of child care health consultation on health policies, practices, and children's access to health careTuesday, November 9, 2010
: 8:45 AM - 9:00 AM
As increasing numbers of young children are cared for in child care centers and family child care homes in the United States, concerns for health and safety of children in out-of-home care has grown. Child care health consultation, a relatively new child health profession, addresses these concerns by offering on-site consultation, training and technical assistance to child care facilities across the country. Fifteen (15) CCHCs in projects across North Carolina each collected data over a two year period. At baseline and four semi-annual follow-ups, the CCHCs assessed written child care health and safety policies and practices and abstracted children's health records in 264 child care facilities. Controlling for all the covariates and hierarchical error structure, we found consultation had significantly positive effects on health policies (RC=.015, p<.05), sanitation (RC=.017, p<.0001), safe play practice (RC=.015, p<.01), and emergency preparation (RC=.022, p<.0001). Also, consultation was effective in reducing the number of children who did not have medical home on file (RC= -.015, p<.05), number of children who did not have health insurance on file (RC= -.011, p<.0001), number of children who did not have well child physical (RC= -.014, p<.05), and number of children who did not have complete emergency contact on file (RC= -.014, p<.05). Child care health consultation can improve health policies and practices in out-of-home child care facilities as well as indicators of children's access to health care, but changes in illness and injury rates could not be demonstrated.
Learning Areas:
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practiceProtection of the public in relation to communicable diseases including prevention or control Public health or related nursing Public health or related public policy Public health or related research Learning Objectives: Keywords: Child Health, Child Care
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Public health faculty for over 30 years. Dr. Kotch is an expert on childcare issues including health and safety, child injury prevention and child abuse and neglect. He serves as the Director of the National Training Institute of Childcare Health Consultants, a organization dedicated to improving the quality of U.S. childcare I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.
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