AAP Re-Examines Factors that Place Children at Risk

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
American Academy of Pediatrics
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CHICAGO (5 November 2001) -- The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) today expanded its list of "new morbidities" - health and social factors that place children at risk. For more than 25 years, pediatricians have recognized that these "new morbidities" are as important as the traditional morbidities of health, such as infectious disease, congenital problems and malnutrition.

This revised list includes learning disabilities, attention disorders, suicide, firearms, school violence, drug and alcohol abuse, HIV, and the effects of media violence. These issues are often exacerbated by poverty, homelessness, single-parent households, and the struggles of working parents, including child care issues.

The revised policy also recommends changes in pediatric training and practice to better meet the challenges of the "new morbidity." These recommendations include the following:

• Expand pediatric residency training to integrate psychosocial issues into primary care.
• Increase knowledge of developmental and behavioral aspects of child health care.
• Increase understanding of positive and negative factors that influence child psychosocial development.
• Improve interviewing, counseling and referral skills.

Pediatricians should also familiarize themselves with the mental health referral process, local mental health resources, and psychotropic medications. Pediatricians may even establish side-by-side practices with mental health professionals to address more complex psychosocial issues encountered in clinical practice.

The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 55,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.

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