New Disability and Health Findings from School of Medicine Outlined (Needs Beyond Coverage: Health Care Inequities Among Children With Disabilities of Parents With Disabilities): Health and Medicine – Disability and Health

2025 APR 07 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Taiwan Daily Report -- Data detailed on Health and Medicine - Disability and Health have been presented. According to news reporting originating from Taipei, Taiwan, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Family aggregation of disability is not uncommon. Research on children with disabilities has often overlooked a specific group facing health disparities: children with disabilities of parents with disabilities.”

Financial support for this research came from National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan.

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from the School of Medicine, “To determine whether children with disabilities, whose parents also have disabilities, experience limited access to health care. This is a dynamic cohort study. The data used in this study were the 2017-2021 Taiwan’s National Disability Registry and the National Health Insurance claims data. All children were matched to their biological fathers and mothers using a unique anonymous identification number to identify the disability status of the children and their parents and the receipt of health care services by the children. In 2021, a total of 2 834 870 pairs of children and parents were identified, of whom 53,419 were children with disabilities. Of these, 5188 had at least one parent with disabilities. Compared with children whose parents did not have disabilities, those whose parents both had disabilities had 1.71 fewer outpatient visits per year (P = .013). Compared with children whose parents had no disabilities, those whose parents had disabilities had 5.0 and 4.2 fewer general outpatient visits at birth (P < .001) and at the age of 2 years (P < .001), respectively. The magnitude of this effect decreased as the children’s age increased. Children with disabilities whose parents also have disabilities may underutilize health care even in settings such as Taiwan, where universal health coverage is available.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Standard health programs do not eliminate health care utilization disparities for such children.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Needs Beyond Coverage: Health Care Inequities Among Children With Disabilities of Parents With Disabilities. Disability and Health Journal, 2025;18(2). Disability and Health Journal can be contacted at: Elsevier Science Inc, Ste 800, 230 Park Ave, New York, NY 10169, USA. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; Disability and Health Journal - http://www.journals.elsevier.com/disability-and-health-journal/)

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Yiing-Jenq Chou, Natl Yang Ming Chiao Tung Univ, Institute for Public Health, School of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan. Additional authors for this research include Christy Pu and Shu-Fang Shih.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dhjo.2024.101755. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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