The Role of Parental Misperception of Child's Body Weight in Childhood Obesity.

UNLABELLED: To investigate the accuracy of parental perceptions of their child's weight status and also the relationship between parental perceptions and the prevalence of childhood obesity in Mississippi. DESIGN AND METHODS: Data from multi-year surveys (2009-2012) with random samples of public school parents (N=14,808). Descriptive statistics and multiple logistic regression were conducted with quantitative data to examine the relationship between parental perception and childhood obesity. RESULTS: More than 2 out of 5 parents misperceived the weight status of their child (k-12). The greatest difference occurred with kindergartners, 83.9% of parents categorized them as "healthy", when only 28.3% actually were. Parents who misperceived their child's weight were almost 12 times more likely of having an obese child. CONCLUSIONS: Only half of the children in this study had a healthy weight (54.5%). Health care providers, nutritionists, social workers, teachers, and school health councils could play an important role in educating parents and children on how to recognize an unhealthy weight. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: The strongest predictor of childhood obesity was parental misperception of their child's weight status.

An assessment of emergency department use among Mississippi's Medicaid population.

BACKGROUND: National trends in Emergency Department (ED) use suggest Medicaid recipients visit the ED more frequently and make more non-emergent ED visits than those uninsured and privately insured. Given the absence of data on Medicaid beneficiaries in Mississippi, it is important to explore their ED utilization, particularly frequent and non-emergent ED visits. METHOD: Medicaid claims data were used to calculate ED visit rates and identify common diagnoses within the Mississippi Medicaid population. Non-emergent ED visits were classified using the NYU ED algorithm. RESULTS: In 2012, 605,555 ED claims were made by 290,324 Medicaid beneficiaries in Mississippi, representing 43.7% of the Medicaid population (664,583). Twelve percent of ED users were frequent users (4 or more claims per year). Most claims (57.5%) were non-emergent, meaning they could have been treated in a primary care setting. CONCLUSION: High rates of non-emergent ED visits suggest gaps in primary care delivery for Mississippi Medicaid beneficiaries.

Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Among Child Care Center Directors in 2008 and 2016.

BACKGROUND: Children in child care centers represent an important population to consider in attempts to mitigate the spread of an influenza pandemic. This national survey, conducted in 2008 and 2016, assessed directors' reports of their child care centers' pandemic influenza preparation before and after the 2009 H1N1 novel influenza pandemic. METHODS: This was a telephone-based survey of child care center directors randomly selected from a national database of licensed US child care centers who were queried about their preparedness for pandemic influenza. We grouped conceptually related items in 6 domains into indexes: general infection control, communication, seasonal influenza control, use of health consultants, quality of child care, and perceived barriers. These indexes, along with other center and director characteristics, were used to predict pandemic influenza preparedness. RESULTS: Among 1500 and 518 child care center directors surveyed in 2008 and 2016, respectively, preparation for pandemic influenza was low and did not improve. Only 7% of directors had taken concrete actions to prepare their centers. Having served as a center director during the 2009 influenza pandemic did not influence preparedness. After adjusting for covariates, child care health consultation and years of director's experience were positively associated with pandemic influenza preparation, whereas experiencing perceived barriers such as lack of knowing what to do in the event of pandemic influenza, was negatively associated with pandemic influenza preparedness. CONCLUSIONS: Pandemic influenza preparedness of child care center's directors needs to improve. Child care health consultants are likely to be important collaborators in addressing this problem.