Improving Health Equity and Outcomes for Children and Adolescents: The Role of School-Based Health Centers (SBHCs)

Purpose: The purpose of this clinical focus article is to convey the significant role that mobile audiology could have in the public health space and discuss how mobile audiology can overcome obstacles that hinder access to traditional audiological care. This article also introduces strategies for delivering innovative audiological care. Method: The article is drawn from the authors' personal research, business, and clinical experiences. It describes the variations in mobile audiology that could aid in improving health care outcomes, identifying underserved areas, identifying barriers, implementing innovative solutions to overcome barriers, limitations of mobile audiology, and implications for optimized hearing health care. Conclusions: Mobile audiology services may play a vital role in public health programs and initiatives by bringing hearing health care to underserved communities, promoting accessibility, and addressing hearing health care concerns that disproportionately impact vulnerable populations. Mobile audiology services extend beyond the conventional concept of service delivery and can reduce barriers that prevent access to hearing health care, such as lack of transportation, geographical conditions/distance, time, lack of insurance coverage for evaluation/treatment, lack of qualified hearing health professionals, and financial constraints. Various services can be offered through mobile audiology, such as comprehensive screenings, diagnostic evaluations, and rehabilitation services/interventions. Mobile audiology services provide patients with the intervention necessary to improve communication abilities, quality of life, and overall health care outcomes.

show abstract

Staff experiences and perspectives of delivering an integrated child health and social care service in community settings: A qualitative exploration using the SELFIE framework

Litchfield,

Harper,

Abbas

et al. 2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Introduction It is suggested that integrated care is well-placed to address the prevalence of chronic conditions, obesity, and mental ill health in children and young people living in minoritized and economically-marginalised communities in high-income countries. This work describes staff perspectives of delivering an integrated place-based service providing multidisciplinary clinical care and early intervention social support to children and young people in an ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged community in the UK. Materials and Methods We conducted a qualitative exploration of the experiences of staff delivering the service and used a directed content analysis to populate and present the results within the Sustainable integrated chronic care model for multi-morbidity, delivery, financing, and performance [SELFIE] framework. The first part of the analysis presented here focusses on the domain of Service delivery, relating to the availability and access of care. Results A total of 14 staff were interviewed including clinicians from primary and secondary care, social care providers, local voluntary groups, and school-based family mentors. Staff described at a Micro- level how the service increased engagement of families and facilitated referral to social support and preventative care; at a Meso- level the benefits of collocation, collaborative working, and community outreach were described. Finally at the Macro level, improvements to the access and availability of appropriate care were observed despite limited engagement by the local care system. Conclusions The pilot appeared to deliver multiple benefits for both patients and staff and the broader health economy particularly through collocating health care and social support. However, to implement truly integrated care, greater institutional commitment and leadership are needed.

show abstract

Improving Health Equity and Outcomes for Children and Adolescents: The Role of School-Based Health Centers (SBHCs)

Cited by 3 publications

References 58 publications

School-based health centers and college health services: Providing comprehensive care in the 2020s – Part I

School-based health centers and college health services: Providing comprehensive care in the 2020s – Part I

Navigating the Role of Mobile Audiology in Public Health: Overcoming Hearing Health Care Barriers That Impact the Underserved

Staff experiences and perspectives of delivering an integrated child health and social care service in community settings: A qualitative exploration using the SELFIE framework

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About