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Rates of depression, anxiety are rising among KC kids, Children's Mercy study finds

Kansas City Star - 4/29/2022

Apr. 29—Children's Mercy Hospital has found that mental health is a growing problem among youth in Kansas City, and that accessing health care is getting more difficult for local families. Hunger, housing instability and other factors related to poverty are also taking a toll on kids' health across the metro.

Children's Mercy publishes this assessment of community health needs once every three years. The lengthy report listed data gathered from 1,250 local families and hundreds of community health care experts.

Increasing rates of youth depression and anxiety

Children's Mercy researchers found that the percentage of local children who experience either "fair" or "poor" mental health has been steadily climbing over the past 10 years. In 2012, only 6.9% of children ages 5 through 17 experienced these low mental health ratings. Now, that number has more than doubled to 14.3%.

Diagnoses of depression among the same age group have jumped from 4.1% in 2012 to 14.1% in 2021. Anxiety diagnoses have spiked even more significantly, from 8.1% to 25.6% over the same period.

Experts say that these increases aren't just a result of greater mental health awareness.

"Certainly the slow decline in [mental health] stigma allows people to feel more comfortable coming forward," said Dr. Sarah Soden, Children's Mercy's director of developmental and behavioral health. "But also, the actual anxiety and depression manifesting in children and teens is on the rise."

The hospital's study also found that mental health is the top health concern for parents of teens. 36.4% of parents with children aged 12-17 ranked it as the number one issue affecting adolescents in the community.

But despite this pressing health concern, many families still find mental health care inaccessible.

"If the pandemic had never happened, we would still be dealing with a crisis of need," Soden added. "But the pandemic has just taken it and exploded it even further."

Accessing medical care is getting more difficult

The hospital's study found that families are increasingly struggling to access the health care their children need. Nearly half of respondents surveyed last year said they had experienced "difficulties or delays of some kind in receiving [their] child's needed health care."

In 2015, nearly 98% of people reported having a reliable source of ongoing medical care for their children. That number has been dropping ever since, and now sits around 85%.

"The families were quite clear that the systems of getting their children care in this community were way too complex," said Margo Quiriconi, the hospital's director of community health initiatives.

Difficulty getting a doctors' appointment and inconvenient office hours were the biggest reasons mentioned for this pattern. Finding a doctor was also a barrier, while the cost of medical care was not a major factor.

Quiriconi noted that health care providers could play a role in removing some of these barriers by holding clinics and health events at the times parents indicated were most convenient for them.

"What families really want are some of those off hours during the weekdays that might better serve their needs," she said. "We as a provider community need to think about, how are we offering appointments, and how are we making those accessible?"

Housing is health care

The hospital found that 14% of children in the greater Kansas City area live in poverty. This percentage is highest in Wyandotte County, where more than one in four children live in poverty: a total of 26.7%. Neighboring Johnson County has the lowest childhood poverty rate at just 5.4%.

Community leaders surveyed in the report stated that the issue most impacting local children's health is housing. This included the cost, stability and conditions of the housing children live in.

"Children living in poor or overcrowded conditions are more likely to have respiratory problems, to be at risk of infections, and [to] have mental health problems," the hospital stated in its presentation on Thursday.

The report also noted that unhoused children are twice as likely to get ear infections, four times as likely to develop Asthma and have five times the rate of gastrointestinal problems as housed children.

Trouble at home also leads to poor health outcomes for children, the study found. The most common Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) reported was separation or divorce of parents, impacting 25.8% of children in the hospital's coverage area. Close behind was financial hardship, impacting 24.7%. Other common ACE's included mental illness and substance abuse in the household.

Hunger also impacts local children, although not as much as it used to. The study found that overall food insecurity in the metro dropped from 35.9% in 2018 to 31% last year. Jackson County had the highest rate in the area, with Wyandotte County a close second.

Do you have more questions about health care in the Kansas City area? Ask the Service Journalism team at kcq@kcstar.com.

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