Promoting children's long-term health and functioning: applying a life course approach to pediatric care for children with special health care needs
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Report (Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health)
- Author(s):
- Fine, Amy, author Hampton, Patsy, author
- Contributor(s):
- Center for the Study of Social Policy, issuing body. Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health, issuing body.
- Publication:
- Palo Alto, CA : Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health, March 2015
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Activities of Daily Living Child Development Child Health Services Child Welfare Chronic Disease Health Promotion Models, Theoretical Pediatrics Child Maternal Welfare Humans United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Life Course Theory (LCT) refers to a growing scientific literature that enhances understanding of health and disease patterns across the life span and across populations. The life course perspective takes into account variations in timing, timeline, environment and equity in experiences and exposures across individuals and populations--and examines the impact on health throughout life. Life course science has been embraced by health researchers, public health agencies, health policy experts, health care providers and leading academics in the U.S. and abroad. However, the translation of LCT to actual pediatric practice and systems has been slow to take hold in any organized way, reflecting a kind of "developmental delay" in making life course practice a reality in pediatric care--for the special needs population, as well as for the general pediatric population. There is a big gap between designing individual strategies or interventions that reflect a life course perspective and undertaking a life course redesign of a pediatric practice. Promoting life course implementation in pediatric care for children with special health care needs (CSHCN) requires a life course implementation framework specifically designed by and for this constituency, with the goal of helping pediatric practices define and become life course practice settings. As a first step in moving toward such a framework, key themes identified through a literature review and interviews were consolidated into six action areas for pediatric practices. Action Areas for Pediatric Practices: (1) Enhance early identification and timely interventions. (2) Target transitions throughout life. (3) Strengthen the family context--reduce stress, build resilience and agency. (4) Link children and families to needed community services and supports. (5) Monitor the status of CSHCN as a sub-population within the pediatric practice and take action to assure equity in care and experience. (6) Focus on functional status. Together, these six action areas form the core of an initial implementation framework--a starting point for pediatric practices that seek to provide a life course approach to care for children with special health needs. This framework will be of greatest value if it can initiate a broad consensus process across multiple stakeholders, with the goal of further defining what it means to be a "life course pediatric practice" for the care of CSHCN and their families.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (25 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101666252 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101666252