Child Health Care Services in Austria

Abstract

We describe child health care in Austria, a small country in Central Europe with a population of about 9 million inhabitants of whom approximately 1.7 million are children and adolescents under the age of 20 years. For children and adolescents, few health care indicators are available. Pediatric and adolescent health provision, such as overall health provision, follows a complex system with responsibilities shared by the Ministry of Health, 19 social insurance funds, provinces, and other key players. Several institutions are affiliated with or cooperate with the Ministry of Health to assure quality control. The Austrian public health care system is financed through a combination of income-based social insurance payments and taxes. Pediatric primary health care in Austria involves the services of general pediatricians and general practitioners. Secondary care is mostly provided by the 43 children's hospitals; tertiary care is (particularly) provided in 4 state university hospitals and 1 private university hospital. The training program of residents takes 6 years and is completed by a final examination. Every year, this training program is completed by about 60 residents.

A Novel Monitoring System (AUT FIT) for Anthropometrics and Physical Fitness in Primary School Children in Austria: A Cross-Sectional Pilot Study

“…Parameters of human development are routinely observed, starting before birth, and regulated by law up to the age of 60 months through mandatory examinations described in the “mother–child passport” [ 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 ]. After children enter the school system, monitoring is carried out by school physicians as part of the annual school examinations [ 50 , 51 , 52 ]. Although monitoring of cognitive competency is obligatory in the Austrian school system [ 53 ], a systematic examination of health-related fitness or motor fitness is currently not integrated into the system [ 54 ].…”

Politische Kindermedizin

“… Verbesserung der kinder- und jugendpsychiatrischen Versorgung. Diese deckt in den meisten Bereichen nur etwa 50 % der benötigten Kapazität [ 4 ]. So fehlen z.…”

Child healthcare in Hungary

“…The teenagers’ fertility rate has been decreasing (23.1 live births per 1000 teenage women in 2014, 39.5 in 1990) ( 8 , 11 ), but this was extremely high compared with other EU countries, for example, it was 2.6 in Austria in 2012 ( 12 ).…”