CISWH Project Resources

Uninsured low-income CSHCN are less likely to have a usual source of care and are more likely to have unmet needs for routine medical and dental care than their insured counterparts. Unmet health care needs can be detrimental to any child; however, for CSHCN, who require more health-care services than their typically developing peers, barriers to needed health services – such as a lack of health insurance – can have long-term health consequences.

Almost 25% of all children in the U.S. are immigrants. Immigrant children and citizen children in mixed-status families are more likely than non-immigrant children and children in families where all members are citizens to lack health insurance.

In this article, we first provide information about CSHCN, insurance status, and associated disparities. We then discuss practice and policy initiatives that social workers could pursue to reduce these disparities, including initiatives prompted by the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Action aimed at ensuring access to health coverage and care for vulnerable children and their families is a critical component of the mission of the social work profession; social workers are encouraged to take action to promote social and economic justice for CSHCN and their families.

This joint webinar between the Catalyst Center and the National Center for Children’s Vision and Eye Health took place on Tuesday, January 14, 2014.

This resource answers questions posed about subsidized marketplace coverage eligibility for families of Medicaid-enrolled children with disabilities. It was first published in a Catalyst Center monthly e-newsletter.

On April 19, 2013, Meg Comeau attended the 30th meeting fo the Secretyary’s Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children. She presented and discussed the Affordable Care Act, described the state marketplaces that will open in January 2014, among other topics.

Maternal and Child Health Town Hall meeting, American Public Health Association annual meeting, Boston, MA.

On Nov. 17, 2013, the Catalyst Center presented a workshop about select provisions of the Affordable Care Act and the implications for children and youth with special health care needs as part of the pre-conference activities at the AUCD (Association of University Centers on Disabilities) conference in Washington D.C.

The webinar provides information about eligibility for public and private health insurance for children and youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN) from immigrant families and explores the provisions of the Affordable Care Act aimed at removing barriers to care.