251655 Taking stock of the CSHCN Screener: Key findings, applications, and methods issues

Monday, October 31, 2011: 3:00 PM

Stephen J. Blumberg, PhD , National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hyattsville, MD
Christina Bethell, PhD, MBA, MPH , Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, The Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR
Children with special health care needs (CSHCN) are defined as children with ongoing physical, mental, behavioral or other conditions who also require a type or amount of health and related services beyond that required by children generally. Since 2000, the CSHCN Screener has been used in national and international surveys as an efficient way to identify these children. In this presentation, we intend to look back at the past 10 years of survey and methodological research using this short five-item assessment tool and explore what this research tells us about its validity.

The data explored in this presentation will be drawn primarily from the 2005-2006 National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs and the 2003 and 2007 National Survey of Children's Health. These surveys are conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics as part of the State and Local Area Integrated Telephone Survey program.

We conclude that the CSHCN Screener continues to provide an efficient and highly discriminating method for identifying this policy-relevant subgroup of children. Recent legislative changes in the United States emphasize the need to reduce disparities in care experienced by CSHCN. Using a standardized tool to identify CSHCN is essential to monitoring their well-being and assessing improvement over time.

Learning Areas:
Epidemiology

Learning Objectives:
Define CSHCN and learn to identify CSHCN using a standardized survey-based assessment tool. Evaluate the validity of the CSHCN Screener. Differentiate subgroups of CSHCN defined by their complexity of health care needs.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Dr. Stephen Blumberg is a senior scientist at the National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is the lead statistician for the State and Local Area Integrated Telephone Survey. This random-digit-dial survey mechanism regularly fields some of the world's largest telephone surveys on children’s health, health care, and well-being, including the National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs and the National Survey of Children’s Health. His research on survey strategies to identify vulnerable populations (such as children with special health care needs) has been published in journals ranging from the American Journal of Public Health to Ambulatory Pediatrics and the Maternal and Child Health Journal.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

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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