TABLE 2.
Characteristics of Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN), Age 0–17 Years, by SDM Category
| Variable | Included | Excludeda | P Valueb Comparing SDM Patterns | P Valueb Comparing Included Versus Excluded | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Increasing | Unchanged High | Unchanged Low | Decreasing | ||||
| N | 483 | 1443 | 484 | 448 | 393 | ||
| No. children represented in population | 1.9 million | 6.3 million | 2.0 million | 1.8 million | 1.4 million | ||
| Percent represented | 15.9% | 51.9% | 17.0% | 15.2% | |||
| Demographic characteristics | % | % | % | % | % | ||
| Age, y | .009 | .6 | |||||
| 0–4 | 13.3 | 11.8 | 20.5 | 17.1 | 16.3 | ||
| 5–12 | 50.8 | 50.3 | 45.3 | 47.5 | 49.5 | ||
| 13–17 | 35.9 | 37.9 | 34.2 | 35.4 | 34.2 | ||
| Female | 44.1 | 43.8 | 40.8 | 43.7 | 46.0 | .8 | .4 |
| Race | .4 | <.001 | |||||
| White | 80.2 | 79.0 | 75.7 | 77.2 | 68.2 | ||
| Black | 15.0 | 16.5 | 17.2 | 16.1 | 19.4 | ||
| Other | 4.8 | 4.5 | 7.1 | 6.7 | 12.4 | ||
| Hispanic | 16.4 | 12.7 | 12.0 | 14.9 | 18.2 | .2 | .03 |
| Region | .9 | .2 | |||||
| Northeast | 19.6 | 19.7 | 17.9 | 15.7 | 12.7 | ||
| Midwest | 21.6 | 22.8 | 22.9 | 21.0 | 24.9 | ||
| South | 37.2 | 39.0 | 38.5 | 40.6 | 40.6 | ||
| West | 21.6 | 18.5 | 20.7 | 22.7 | 21.9 | ||
| Parental education | .8 | .02 | |||||
| No degree | 11.9 | 9.2 | 11.3 | 11.9 | 17.1 | ||
| High school complete | 45.4 | 45.7 | 48.4 | 44.3 | 48.7 | ||
| Bachelor's degree | 19.0 | 16.5 | 15.0 | 19.7 | 11.3 | ||
| Graduate-level degree | 10.1 | 13.3 | 12.6 | 11.7 | 11.5 | ||
| Other degree | 13.6 | 15.3 | 12.7 | 12.4 | 11.4 | ||
| Poverty | .1 | <.001 | |||||
| Poor | 23.0 | 17.7 | 21.9 | 19.5 | 28.3 | ||
| Near poor | 4.2 | 4.1 | 5.9 | 4.1 | 5.8 | ||
| Low income | 15.7 | 15.6 | 16.4 | 12.9 | 15.3 | ||
| Middle income | 32.9 | 29.1 | 31.1 | 31.7 | 33.6 | ||
| High income | 24.2 | 33.5 | 24.7 | 31.8 | 16.0 | ||
| Insurance coverage | .04 | <.001 | |||||
| Any private | 60.1 | 67.7 | 60.7 | 65.1 | 50.3 | ||
| Other | 39.9 | 32.3 | 39.3 | 34.9 | 49.7 | ||
| General health status patternc | .0005 | .06 | |||||
| Increasing | 23.3 | 19.7 | 20.0 | 18.1 | 16.0 | ||
| Unchanged high | 31.4 | 39.0 | 24.5 | 30.2 | 28.8 | ||
| Unchanged intermediate | 14.3 | 12.7 | 18.0 | 14.7 | 18.0 | ||
| Unchanged low | 11.4 | 8.4 | 12.0 | 11.5 | 7.4 | ||
| Decreasing | 18.6 | 20.2 | 25.5 | 25.5 | 29.8 | ||
Children were excluded if they had no usual source of care or their household did not respond to any of the items used to create the SDM measure.
P values calculated by χ2 tests with robust variance estimates accounting for the weighted, clustered, and stratified MEPS survey design.
General Health Status determined using the overall score from 5 Likert-scaled items derived from the Child Health Questionnaire, General Health Subscale (child seems less healthy than other children, child has never been seriously ill, child usually catches whatever is going around, expect child will have a healthy life, respondent worries more than is usual about child’s health). For each year, the overall score was categorized as (low, <15; medium, 15 to <20; or high, ≥20). Patterns over the 2 study years are presented.