United States: Research from expert sources indicates that medical reports show one-third of children now are facing chronic diseases that will affect their future health.
More about the news
Academic Pediatrics research data shows that the percentage of children aged 5 to 17 who have chronic diseases reached 30 percent in 2018, yet it stood at 23 percent in 1999.
The yearly total of medical diagnoses for children with chronic conditions reaches 130,000 per year.
UCLA professor Lauren Wisk, working at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, noticed in a news release that the rise in diagnosed chronic conditions resulted mainly from children getting identified with ADHD/ADD, autism, asthma, prediabetes, and mood disorders, including depression or anxiety, US News reported.
What more are the experts stating?
More than 236,000 people between the ages of 5 and 25 participated in the National Health Interview Survey from 1999 to 2018, according to researcher analysis.
“The prevalence of childhood conditions is currently higher than previous estimates suggest,” Wisk stated.
“Youth who are subject to socioeconomic vulnerability such as having less education, lower income, are on public insurance, or unemployed are all more likely to live with a chronic condition than youth with socioeconomic advantages,” she continued.
A total of 80,000 additional young adults developed chronic illnesses from 1999 to 2018, resulting in an increase in chronic illness from 19% to 29% among 18- to 25-year-olds, US News reported.
Treatable health conditions exist for all these conditions when quality healthcare is accessible, yet children frequently lack such healthcare access, according to Wisk.
Furthermore, “Most youths with chronic conditions need to access health and social services for the rest of their lives, but our health system is not set up to successfully move young people from pediatric to adult-focused care, and so many of these youth are at risk of disengaging with care and experiencing disease exacerbations,” she noted.
“We should invest in assisting these youth in engaging appropriately with healthcare across their lifespan in order to protect their health and well-being, and to facilitate their maximum participation in society with respect to education, vocation, social groups, and community spaces,” Wisk continued.