Demographics of families with CSHCN in Iowa

According to the 2000 US Census, there are 737,212 children under the age of 18 living in Iowa (25% of Iowa's population). This is similar to national statistics indicating that 25.7% of the United States population is under age 18. There are 361,153 families with children under age 18 in Iowa.

Seventeen percent of Iowa's children (127,000) were identified as having a special health care need as defined by the FACCT screening instrument used in this study. Nationally, a different CSHCN identification method found a similar percentage of children (18%) with a special health care need.⁶

Children with special health care needs in Iowa were similar to children without such needs regarding size of household (average of 2 adults and 2.4 children), and racial distribution (90 percent white, three percent African-American, just over one percent Native American and Asian, and five percent 'other'; within this distribution, three percent of Iowa's children were considered to be of more than one race and three percent were of Spanish or Hispanic origin). Children with special needs were more likely to live in single parent households (15% vs 10%) and tended to live in lower income households. Almost one in four CSHCN (23%) lived in a family with a household income of less than $25,000 compared to 18% of children without special needs.

⁶ Newacheck PW, McManus M, Fox HB, Hung YY, Halfon N. Access to health care for children with special health care needs. Pediatrics. 105(4 Pt 1):760-6, 2000 Apr.