ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE

This indicator reports the number and percentage of children under 18 years old who are uninsured; the number and percentage who do not have a usual source of care; and those who experienced delayed care or did not receive medical care or prescription medications.

Why is this important?

Improving health care access for all children helps to improve prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of health problems. Children with health insurance are more likely to get timely prescription medications and medical or mental health care when needed; are more likely to get preventive care (including immunizations, dental care and vision screenings); and, overall, have better health outcomes.

Findings

• In 2015, 3.4% of children were uninsured, representing a drop in uninsured rates by more than half since 2008 (from 10.9%).

• Orange County has a similar rate of uninsured children (3.4%) to California (3.3%), but currently better than the national average (4.8%) in 2015.

• More Hispanic children continue to have higher uninsured rates than other racial/ethnic groups, with 4.3% of Hispanic children uninsured in 2015, compared with Asian children (3.0%), White children (2.6%) and Other races (1.5%). However, this gap is shrinking.

• U ninsured rates for very young children (0-5 years old) have dropped by nearly three-fourths from 8.9% in 2009 to 2.4% in 2015. Similarly, rates of uninsured children between six and 17 years old have dropped by two-thirds, from 11.2% in 2009 to 3.9% in 2015.

• In addition, the 2015 California Health Interview Survey (pooled estimate for 2012 through 2015) reveals:

– An estimated 81,729 (10.8%) Orange County children annually did not have a usual source of care to go to when they were sick or needed health advice. This is an increase from 2014 when 7.7% of children did not have a usual source of care.

– Approximately 20,432 children (2.7%) experienced a delay or lack of medical care and approximately 26,486 children (3.5%) experienced a delay or lack of needed prescription medications, about the same as in previous years.

Most children who had access to a usual source of care went to a doctor’s office (68.6%), while 19.9% went to a clinic or community hospital.