CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 132Mental Health Treatment and AccessRacial and Ethnic Identity ResearchChild and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development

Racial/Ethnic Disparity Trends in Children’s Mental Health Care Access and Expenditures From 2010-2017: Disparities Remain Despite Sweeping Policy Reform

Open access
Rodgers, Caryn R.R., Flores, Michael William, Bassey, Obioesio, Augenblick, Jenna M., Cook, Benjamin Lê·2022·Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
DOI 10.1016/j.jaac.2021.09.420PMC PMC8986880
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Objective To examine trends in mental health care use for Black and Latinx children and adolescents.Method Data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey for 2010-2017 were analyzed to assess trends among youth ages 5-17 in use and expenditures for any mental health care, outpatient mental health care, and psychotropic medication prescription fills. Unadjusted trends for all youth and the subpopulation of youth reporting need for mental health care and disparities adjusting for need were examined.Results Between 2010 and 2017, Black youth rates of any past year mental health care use decreased (from 9% to 8%), while White (from 13% to 15%) and Latinx (from 6% to 8%) youth rates increased. Among the subpopulation with need and in regression analysis adjusting for need, we identified significant Black-White and Latinx-White disparities in any mental health care use and any outpatient mental health care use in 2010-2011 and 2016-2017, with significant worsening of Black-White disparities over time. White youth were more than twice as likely as Latinx youth to use psychotropic medications, and Latinx-White and Black-White disparities in psychotropic medication prescription fills persisted over time. Black-White disparities existed in overall mental health expenditures (2016-2017) and outpatient mental health expenditures (2010-2011 and 2016-2017).Conclusion Affordable, ubiquitous access to mental health care for Black and Latinx youth remains an elusive target. Significant disparities exist in receiving mental health care despite reforms and policies designed to increase mental health care access in the general population. Additional outreach and treatment strategies tailored to the cultural, linguistic, and structural needs of youth of color are required.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.jaac.2021.09.420

Cites

52 of 52 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Existing literature has found that youth of color, particularly Black and Latine youth, tend to have poorer health outcomes than white youth.

    “given existing literature, which has found that youth of color, particularly Black and Latine youth, tend to have poorer health outcomes than white youth [70,71].”

    From Burnout and Belonging: How the Costs and Benefits of Youth Activism Affect Youth Health and Wellbeing (2023) · cites this paper as [71]

    The Results report that Black and Latinx youth were less likely than White youth to report excellent health and more likely to report good or fair health. That supports a difference in reported health status, but the paper does not establish the broader claim of poorer health outcomes; its main findings concern mental health care access and expenditures. Page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Latinx youth continue to experience significant disparities in access to mental health services despite reforms and policies aiming to improve access.

    “Latinx youth continue to experience significant disparities in access to mental health services (MHS) despite reforms and policies aiming to improve access”

    From Dimensions of caregiver strain may partially mediate the relationship between youth symptomology and counseling utilization among Latinxs (2024) · cites this paper as [1]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

3 of the 55 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. [26]Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Understanding and Eliminating Racail and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care, Smedley BD, Stith AY, Nelson AR, eds. Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2003. 25032386
  2. [28]Bird HR, Andrews H, Schwab-Stone M, Global measures of impairment for epidemiologic and clinical use with children and adolescents. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research. 1996; 6(4): 295– 307.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Rodgers, C. R. R., Flores, M. W., Bassey, O., Augenblick, J. M., & Cook, B. L.
Affiliations
  • Albert Einstein College of Medicine (US)
  • Cambridge Health Alliance (US)
Corresponding author
Rodgers, Caryn R.R.
ORCID
Venue
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2022-07
Volume
61
Issue
7
Pages
915-925
ISSN
0890-8567 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.jaac.2021.09.420
PMC
PMC8986880
OpenAlex
W3203790657
Cited by
132
References
55
Citations by year
2026: 26 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 38 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 1
FWCI
18.13
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute of Mental Health (P50 MH126283)
  • National Institutes of Health
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
Keywords
racial and ethnic disparities, Black youth, Latinx youth, outpatient psychiatric care, mental health policy reform, youth of color
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Black or African American, Child, Child, Preschool, Health Expenditures, Health Services Accessibility, Hispanic or Latino, Humans, Psychotropic Drugs, United States, White People, Healthcare Disparities, Policy

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review