Public health reports
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Public health reports · Jan 2007
Trends in mental health and chronic condition visits by children presenting for care at U.S. emergency departments.
The purpose of this study was to compare the burden of mental health disorders to the burden of other chronic care conditions as measured by emergency department (ED) visits by children with respect to prevalence rates, time trends, and hospital admission rates. ⋯ The burden of mental health related visits to U.S. EDs is growing at a faster rate than visits related to chronic conditions. Visit intensity, hospital admission, and medication utilization is just as intense as that for chronic conditions. Promoting provider mental health training and restructuring the ED visit to allow for rapid mental health assessment and immediate onsite or contiguous mental health care may be one way to improve outcomes for families and to position the ED as part of a larger integrated system of effective mental illness care.
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Public health reports · Jan 2007
Vaccination in juvenile correctional facilities: state practices, hepatitis B, and the impact on anticipated sexually transmitted infection vaccines.
Juvenile correctional facilities are an ideal setting to provide preventive vaccines to adolescents who are at risk. In many instances of incarceration, facilities overcome the need for parental consent by making young people wards of the state and the state providing consent. The authors investigated current state practices for administering hepatitis B vaccine to incarcerated adolescents. These may impact the delivery of anticipated sexually transmitted infection (STI) vaccines to incarcerated adolescents. ⋯ Most states offer hepatitis B vaccination to sentenced adolescents in correctional facilities. Just over half of these states also vaccinate detained adolescents. Juvenile correctional facilities have experience administering vaccines, and this might allow for expansion of vaccination services when new STI vaccines become available. Still, there are major barriers to universal vaccination of incarcerated adolescents, including the issue of consent.