Foster care children at much greater risk of physical, mental health problems
"No previous research has considered how the mental and physical well-being of children who have spent time in foster care compares to that of children in the general population," said study co-author Kristin Turney, UCI associate professor of sociology. "This work makes an important contribution to the research community by showing for the first time that foster care children are in considerably worse health than other children. Our findings also present serious implications for pediatricians by suggesting that foster care placement is a risk factor for health problems in childhood." Published online Oct. 17 (Eastern time) ahead of print in Pediatrics , the large-scale study is the first to offer health comparisons based on a nationally representative sample of U.S. children. Turney and co-author Christopher Wildeman, associate professor of policy analysis & management at Cornell University, analyzed data from the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children'...