This brief is through the National Center for Children in Poverty and provides research on health disparities for young children. Early health risks can have a variety of long term implications in terms of physical, emotional, and intellectual development as well as health status, disabilities, and educational achievement. In this paper, authors highlight patterns of disparities in terms of risks, outcomes, access, and treatment.

The Administration for Children and Families currently funds the Early Head Start program, which is aimed at enhancing the development of infants and toddlers while strengthening families. This report includes research from the Survey of Early Head Start Programs to gain information for program improvement in Early Head Start. The results from this study include demographics of the Early Head Start program participants and information on how these programs are implemented in sites around the country.

Through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), this case study reviews Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) enrollment trends in Michigan from 1999 to 2003. Additionally, it looks at the activities in Michigan under the Covering Kids and Families (CKF) project through RWJF, and enrollments associated with the CKF grant, as well as State and local policy changes during that time.

Early care and education has become a reality for many young children with an increasing number of working parents in the United States. The early years for children are extremely important for future development and prove the need for high-quality early care and education for low-income families. This resource, from the Urban Institute, found that more than half of children younger than the age of six in low-income families are enrolled in early care and education programs.

From the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, this research brief uses data from a 2005 study to examine health coverage, access and the financial impacts of health care for low-income parents and their families. It was found that low-income uninsured parents are mostly without access to health coverage and are much more likely to have uninsured children than those with insurance. In fact, four in ten low-income parents are without access to health coverage and are much more likely to have uninsured children than those with insurance.

GAO conducted this study on dental services for children on Medicaid because the 31 million children on Medicaid are particularly vulnerable to tooth decay, which, if untreated, may lead to more serious health conditions. Research looked at the data that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requires States to report on the provision of dental services. Children on Medicaid should have access to services to treat dental disease, as these services are critical for ensuring that children and adolescents are healthy and prepared to learn.

This report is from the National Center on Children in Poverty, and provides information on state policy choices surrounding early childhood policies. State polices regarding early childhood are affected by federal changes in programs such as Medicaid and the Child Care and Development Fund, and this leads to variance across the country.

The National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services authored this document on rural health and human services in the United States. This report examines the following key topics: Medicare Advantage, Head Start, and substance abuse. Findings confirm the difficulty of implementing human services in rural areas.

This fact sheet, from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, provides an overview of the health of African American men, including mortality rates, health status, insurance coverage, and access to care. Authors find that African American adult men are more likely to lack health insurance than boys, as are adult men in the Midwest and the South, compared to the Northeast and the West.

This resource is from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Inspector General (OIG), and provides information on OIG’s initiatives from the last 30 years. OIG has continued to work in audit, investigative, and evaluative oversight of Medicare, Medicaid, and the group of public health agencies that comprise HHS. The Office is also confronting new issues in public health under the recent Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, emergency preparedness and response and health information technology initiatives.