TUESDAY, April 29, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Families of children with disabilities have a nearly doubled likelihood of experiencing financial hardships versus families of children without disabilities, according to a research letter published online April 24 in JAMA Network Open.
Amy J. Houtrow, M.D., Ph.D., from University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues used data from the National Health Interview Survey to quantify the hardships of health care costs to families of children with disabilities. The analysis included 22,670 children (aged 5 to 17 years).
The researchers found that the overall prevalence of disability was 17.4 percent, with emotional or behavioral as the most commonly reported disabilities. There were weak associations for disability prevalence across sociodemographic characteristics, although children with disabilities were more likely to have public insurance (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 1.42) or a combination of private and public insurance (AOR, 2.79) versus peers without disabilities. Families of children with disabilities had a nearly doubled likelihood of experiencing any of six financial hardships versus families of children without disabilities (22.3 versus 12.6 percent; AOR, 1.91), including more difficulty paying medical bills (AOR, 1.97) and being more likely to be very worried about medical expenses (AOR, 1.35). Families of children with disabilities also experienced higher rates of delayed and forgone care due to cost.
“This finding suggests that insurance is inadequate for disabled children,” the authors write.
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