Title: Of Note

Author:

Section/SPIG: Maternal and Child Health

Issue Date:

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America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2005 --
<http://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/index.asp>
This is a biennial report to the nation on the condition of children in America. Nine contextual measures describe the changing population, family, and environmental context in which children are living, and 25 indicators depict the well-being of children in the areas of economic security, health, behavior and social environment, and education.

Going Without: America’s Uninsured Children, A 31-page Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report documenting that among the millions of uninsured children, many of them black and Latino, one in three goes an entire year without seeing a doctor. Aug. 2, 2005 marked the kick-off for “Covering Kids and Families,” the foundation’s sixth annual campaign encouraging parents to make health insurance enrollment a back-to-school priority. In D.C., 10 percent of children were without insurance in 2002-03, the time covered by the report, and 25 percent of uninsured children didn’t see a doctor for a year – lower than the 33 percent national average. Bilingual information, outreach efforts, and streamlining government eligibility requirements could increase primary care enrollment. Many children don’t go to see a doctor – they go to the emergency room for treatment. For more information, go to <www.coveringkidsandfamilies.org>.

La guía esencial sobre sexualidad adolescente was released on Sept. 15, 2005, and made available for young people, parents, educators, physicians and to all those who have been searching for a science and reality-based sexuality resource for Spanish speaking populations. Chapter include: Sexual Anatomy; Things to Expect During the Teen Years; Love, Love, Love; Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships; How to Make Love; How are Babies Made; Contraception (Birth Control); STDs and HIV/AIDS; Abortion; How to Say No to Sex; Drinking, Drugs, and Rape; Preventing Adult Sexual Contact and Harm; Being Gay; Dealing with Sadness and Depression; How to Make it through Tough Times; How to Raise Happy and Successful Parents; and How to be Your Best. A press release in Spanish is available to help spread the word. If you work with Hispanic populations and would like to order a copy for yourself or are interested in ordering copies for your institution, please contact Steve Deger at Fairview Press, (612) 672-4774, <SDeger1@fairview.org>.

The Children's Partnership is pleased to announce the launch of their redesigned Contentbank Web site, <www.contentbank.org>. Contentbank is dedicated to supporting the development of online content for and by low-income and under-served communities. The Contentbank site has been re-tooled to more effectively support our advocacy work and provide easier access to our rich collection of Online Resources, Program Examples, News Articles, and more. We are also pleased to announce the launch of The Children's Partnership's new website that includes a new look, improved navigation, and easy ways to support the work of The Children's Partnership. We invite you to visit this site in addition to our other revamped program sites: <www.childrenspartnership.org> -information about The Children's Partnership; <www.techpolicybank.org> -- information and resources to promote digital opportunity for young people; <www.expresslaneinfo.org> -- information and resources on how to use public programs to enroll uninsured children into health insurance. We welcome your questions and comments. Contact us at <comments@contentbank.org>.

Non-English Materials and Resources is an index page that provides new, easy access to information in the MCH Library that is available in over 60 languages. The index page lists each language for which information is available and provides automated searching of library databases. The index is available at <http://www.mchlibrary.info/nonenglish.html>.

Maternal and Child Health Thesarus: The third edition thesaurus provides the MCH professional community with a standard vocabulary that serves as a tool for indexing and retrieving materials in any MCH research center, library, or special collection. The thesaurus Web site provides an introduction; an alphabetical list of terms; a rotated list of terms; a set of subject categories; and a search function to search. A PDF version of the full thesaurus is also available on the Web site at <http://www.mchthesaurus.info>.

Federal regulations originally designed to streamline the health care system may unintentionally limit coverage for vital child developmental services, a new Commonwealth Fund report finds. According to How Medical Claims Simplification Can Impede Delivery of Child Developmental Services, by George Washington University researchers Anne Markus PhD, Sara Rosenbaum JD, Alexandra Stewart, JD, and Marisa Cox, MA, provisions in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) that require health insurers and providers to use standardized billing codes for medical claims leave little discretion to individual insurers. To comply with HIPAA, state Medicaid agencies must eliminate some payment codes that have been tailored to the special needs of Medicaid-enrolled children; this process can lead to reduced coverage for mental health services, early intervention, physical and speech therapy, home care, case management, transportation, and other services not usually provided in private physician practices. The authors say that federal policymakers should consider revising the law so that states can preserve coverage of services targeting children at risk for developmental problems. For more information, go to the website of the Commonwealth Foundation at <commonwealthfund@cmwf.org>.

The Adolescent Brain: A Work in Progress, authored by international experts in adolescent brain development Drs. Daniel Weinberger, Jay Giedd, and Brita Elvevååg, is now available from the National Campaign To Prevent Teen Pregnancy. This new publications examines neurological development as an important dimension of overall adolescent development, and suggests that efforts to understand, guide, and help teens should be based in part on a deeper appreciation of adolescent neurobiology. To view the article, go to: <www.teenpregnancy.org/resources/reading/pdf/BRAIN.pdf>.

New "Science Says" Released on Teen Attitudes Toward Sex: About two-thirds of all teens aged 15-19 disapprove of unmarried 16-year-olds having sex. Teens young and old -- and of all racial/ethnic groups -- generally do not think it is appropriate for unmarried 16-year-olds to have sex. As a general matter, however, teens are less likely to disapprove of unmarried 18-year-olds having sex. These are just some of the findings from the latest “Science Says” research brief released by the National Campaign To Prevent Teen Pregnancy. The brief uses the recent round of the National Survey of Family Growth, collected in 2002, to examine teens' attitudes about sexual activity outside of marriage. The research brief was prepared with support form the Office of Population Affairs, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, although its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors. To view the research brief, go to:
<www.teenpregnancy.org/works/pdf/Science_Says_14_Attitudes_Toward_Sex.pdf>.

New Book Edited by Child Trends: One of the fruits of a Child Trends conference held in 2003 on Indicators of Positive Development is a new book entitled What Do Children Need to Flourish: Conceptualizing and Measuring Indicators of Positive Development, edited by Child Trends' Kristin Moore and Laura Lippman. The book has been published by Springer Science+Business Media and includes 21 of the papers presented at the conference. For more information, go to:
<www.springeronline.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,4-102-22-34958016-0,00.html?changeHeader=true>.

Rights vs. Responsibilities: Professional Standards and Provider Refusals: Health care providers have an obligation to act in the best interest of their patients, even when doing so requires acting against their personal beliefs, according to this new study by Adam Sonfield, which appears in the August 2005 issue of The Guttmacher Report on Public Policy. The author reached this conclusion after studying providers' professional codes of ethics, which define providers' rights and responsibilities and specify what is and is not appropriate when caring for patients. Health care associations generally uphold providers’ rights to decline to perform a service that violates their moral or religious beliefs. However, they also accept that providers' rights are limited by the responsibility of ensuring that patients receive the information, services and respect to which they are entitled. Providers do not have the right to obstruct access, impose their own beliefs on a patient or attempt to use personal beliefs to block or deny a patient's right to care. To view the article, go to: <www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/08/3/gr080307.html>.

Politicizing Statutory Rape Reporting Requirements: A Mounting Campaign? The body of law governing reporting requirements for incidents of sexual intercourse involving an underage minor -- often referred to as statutory rape -- is complex and sometimes unclear, according this study by Chinue Turner Richardson and Cynthia Dailard. When dealing with such requirements, providers of reproductive health services are expected to balance their ethical duty to ensure that minors have access to confidential health care with their legal obligation to report statutory rape when it is detected. Complicating this is an effort by certain social conservatives to use statutory rape reporting requirements to deter adolescents from seeking services and to undermine the providers who offer care. To view this article, go to: <www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/08/3/gr080301.html>.

The newsletter of the National Women's Health Information Center (NWHIC) Healthy Women Today for August 2005 is now available at: <www.womenshealth.gov/newsletter/2005.08.htm>. Topics in the newsletter include: NWHIC Breastfeeding Web Site Voted #1; NWHIC Resource Center: A Helping Voice; Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage: It's All Coming Together; and August is World Breastfeeding Month.