This represents the full agenda of PolicyLab participation in the 2017 Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in San Francisco, Calif., May 6-9. You can find the abstracts for each of the PolicyLab researchers participating in the meeting presented in chronological order. 

INTRODUCTION: Depressive disorders are prevalent psychiatric disorders that comprise a cluster of affective, somatic, and physical symptoms. From childhood to adolescence, prevalence rates for major depressive disorder increase to rates similar to adults. An epidemiological…

BACKGROUND: The use of inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) medications has been shown to improve asthma control and reduce asthma-related morbidity and mortality. Two recent randomized trials demonstrated dramatic improvements in ICS adherence by monitoring adherence with electronic sensors…

BACKGROUND: Measuring outcomes of emergency care is of key importance, but current metrics, such as 72-hour return visit rates, are subject to ascertainment bias, incentivize overtesting and overtreatment at initial visit, and do not reflect the full burden of disease and morbidity…

The transition from pediatric to adult health care systems can be daunting for anyone, but is especially challenging for young people with intellectual disabilities or other special health care needs. These youth and young adults face numerous challenges while…

For the 15 percent of adolescents who have intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD), transitioning to adulthood can present unique challenges to accessing necessary health care. PolicyLab researchers have identified specific barriers facing this population…

More than 95 percent of children in the U.S. currently have health insurance. We can attribute much of the success in achieving this nearly universal rate of children's coverage to the introduction of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in 1997 and the 1965 passage of…

BACKGROUND: Psychiatric comorbidity is common in pediatric medical and surgical hospitalizations and is associated with worse hospital outcomes. Integrating medical or surgical and psychiatric hospital care depends on accurate estimates of which hospitalized children have psychiatric…

Each year, hundreds of millions of prescription medications are dispensed to pediatric patients. A significant proportion of prescriptions are used in an off-label manner, outside the specifications approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), rendering off-label…

Implicit bias refers to unconscious attitudes that lie below the surface, but may influence our behaviors. In the clinical setting, implicit racial bias may impact patient–provider communication, disparities in treatment, patient–family satisfaction with medical encounter …