Mental health-related emergency department visits range from two percent to five percent of all hospital emergency department visits for children and youth. This brief is from the National Center for Children in Poverty and outlines mental health services in emergency rooms for children. Authors provide an overview of the challenges with mental health related emergency room visits and offers recommendations for better serving children and youth in this environment.

Lack of employer-sponsored health insurance can affect the productivity of workers and the health of their families. This paper is from the Urban Institute and offers information on access to employer-sponsored health insurance. By evaluating low-income working families, with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty level, the researchers examine patterns of access for health insurance.

This issue brief, authored by Mathematica Policy Research, is the sixth in a series on workers with disabilities and provides information on the Demonstration to Maintain Independence and Employment (DMIE). The DMIE is a program funded through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and provides funds for States to develop, implement, and evaluate interventions to improve health care coverage and employment services for adults with potentially disabling conditions. Authors review the objectives of the DMIE and information on the Demonstration in four States, and conclude with next steps on disseminating the results from projects around the country.

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.