Who Provides Care for Children and Adolescents?

Among children, the proportion of visits to general pediatricians versus nonpediatricians is up, especially for adolescent patients.

The critical shortage of internists and family practitioners, in contrast with an increasing number of pediatricians, raises the issue of who cares for adolescents. Investigators used a national dataset to assess trends in the proportion of office visits by children to pediatricians and nonpediatricians from 1980 through 2006.

Since 1980, the percentage of nonsurgical visits by children younger than 18 years to general pediatricians increased from about 58% to 71%, while visits to nonpediatric generalists declined from 28% to 22%. Since 2000, among children younger than 10 years, about 80% of visits were to general pediatricians. The greatest changes in the distribution of pediatric visits from 2000 to 2006 have been among children aged 11 t…

Reviewing Author

Howard Bauchner, MD

Disclosures

Grant / research supportHuman Resources and Services Administration; NIH; NIH-NHLBI; USDA; GlaxoSmithKline

Editorial boardsArchives of Disease in Childhood (Editor-in-Chief)

Howard Bauchner, MD

Disclosures

Grant / research supportHuman Resources and Services Administration; NIH; NIH-NHLBI; USDA; GlaxoSmithKline

Editorial boardsArchives of Disease in Childhood (Editor-in-Chief)