This study evaluates the impact of different healthcare delivery models on health outcomes for children in foster care and examines the factors that contribute to variations in healthcare use and health outcomes for these youth.
What is the research about?
Children in foster care experience worse physical and behavioral health outcomes than other children. The health risks for children in foster care are further compounded due to the frequent communication failures between the healthcare and child welfare systems.
This study uses linked child welfare and electronic health record data from the past 12 years for over 9,000 patients, as well as Medicaid claims data and child and caregiver health status reports for a subset of 200 patients. This data will be used to compare healthcare use and outcomes for patients engaged in different models of care: mandated healthcare visits at the time of foster care placement alone; mandated visits, primary care, and specialty care all delivered in the same healthcare system; and coordinated information sharing between the healthcare system and the child welfare system. The research team also seeks to identify how child welfare system factors (e.g., foster care placement), caregiver characteristics (e.g., perceptions of healthcare), and child characteristics (e.g., diagnoses, age, and race) impact a child’s healthcare use and health outcomes over time.
Results from this study are forthcoming. Current and future publications from this grant will be posted here.
Primary Care Relevance
This study will help identify which healthcare delivery models work best to care for children in foster care, and which factors are the greatest drivers of healthcare use and outcomes for these children. These findings can be used to implement health delivery practice changes, often in primary care, to improve the health outcomes of these vulnerable youth.
AHRQ Primary Care Priority Area
Research to improve primary care, including regarding quality, access and affordability, the workforce, care delivery models, financing, digital healthcare, person-centeredness, and health equity.
