Children's Health Story Archives - Page 2 of 2 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Prevent Asthma, Consider Getting a Dog

A new study indicates that children exposed to high indoor levels of pet or pest allergens during infancy may have less risk of developing asthma.

Previous studies found that reducing exposure to things that aggravate asthma like pet dander can help control the condition. But the new study, published today in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology found that exposure to certain allergens before asthma is established, may help prevent kids from developing asthma at all.

More than 8 percent of children in the United States currently have asthma, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Asthma is a chronic disease that both inflames and narrows the airways when triggered and is a major cause of emergency department visits and hospitalizations.

The research is part of the ongoing Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma study and is funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.

Families Needing Specialty Care May Have to Go Out of State

If you look at the data, West Virginia has enough pediatricians to cover the number of children here. What there aren’t enough of is many pediatric specialties such as pediatric allergists, neurologists or rheumatologists. And that’s forcing many families like the Laxtons to seek care out of state.

Lori Laxton met me at McDonalds in Beckley. When her daughter was four she began having trouble with her kidneys.

The closest pediatric urologist was at the University of Virginia Medical Center – 3.5 to four hours away from her home in Pineville.

A few years later, her son was diagnosed with general epilepsy. The closest neurologist was in Charleston – almost two hours away. Although closer, that experience didn’t go well.

“He pretty much looked at us and said your son will have seizures. Get over it and go on,” said Laxton.

Laxton didn’t accept that diagnosis and ended up driving farther for a second opinion. That experience went better so she continued making the three-four hour trip with her son.

A pediatric cardiologist based in Morgantown, Larry Rhodes, said pediatric and adult subspecialties are totally different ballgames.

“There’s really a lot of difference between – let me just use peds cardiology as an example – what we take care of as pediatric cardiologists is not the same thing as that adult cardiologists take care of…The only thing we really share is the word cardiologist – we’re really two completely different specialists,” said Rhodes.

In 2014, Rhodes set up a specialty pediatric clinic in Summersville. Twelve days a month about ten different pediatric specialists now come to the central part of the state to see patients. He also helped grow the number of pediatric cardiology clinics across the state to eight.

“My ultimate goal would be that no child would leave West Virginia for care,” said Rhodes. “But there are some specialties that we don’t have and sometimes the wait time to get in to see a specialist in some of these specialties that only have one or two providers is prohibitive.”

Sending specialties out to communities helps bridge the gap. But Rhodes points out, travel eats into how much time physicians have to actually see patients. So efforts to expand in-state access to specialists include improving access to telemedicine services. Those efforts are hindered by a lack of reliable statewide broadband.

“So we kind of put it together with duct tape – we do the best we can and if get to some place where we can do you know telemedicine and then we have the patients they have to come some distance to get there,” he said

But ultimately if we can improve broadband access, that could help solve the problem, he said. Giving patients better access and more choice.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.

Experts Gather in Morgantown for Children's Health Policy Summit

Experts and advocates gathered in Morgantown yesterday for the West Virginia University Children’s Health Policy Summit to talk about policy issues related to children’s health care.

The event was organized primarily as a celebration of the Children’s Health Insurance Plan, more commonly known as CHIP, which over the last 20 years has reduced the childhood uninsured rates in West Virginia to approximately 3 percent.

“We talk a lot about what happens when people or children are connected with health services when they’re young, but we don’t always talk about what happens in the long-term,” said Lindsey Allen, an assistant professor of health economics and policy at West Virginia University.

“And some of the things we’re seeing are that adults that had Medicaid or CHIP when they were younger end up with much better health status as they age and they also end up with much better childhood achievements and additional economic success.”

But CHIP funding is set to expire on September 30th of this year if Congress doesn’t reauthorize the program.

The Senate Finance Committee met yesterday to begin conversations about reauthorization. Rochelle Goodwin, who serves as Senior Associate Vice President for Academic and Public Strategy at West Virginia University said as of late there has been a “seismic shift” in federal health policy.

“We have lots of health care policy questions that are up in the air right now,” she said. “If CHIP is not renewed then states and the federal government need to take a look at what they will do to plug the hole on what has now been a history of about nine million children covered under that program.”

Goodwin said taking a look at how state and federal policies fit together is part of what attendees hope to discuss during the summit. She and Allen both expressed sincere hopes that CHIP would be reauthorized – pointing to not only potentially negative health impacts, but also economic repercussions of reducing access to health care.

“What we’re also seeing with that additional economic success it that people are ending up with higher incomes, which means they’re paying more money into the government pot,” said Allen. “And then we’re also having to spend less in the earned income tax credit that we’re shelling out for these people. So there are a couple different ways that having CHIP and Medicaid access when children are young pay dividends in the long-term.”

About 150 people attended the summit, including former US Secretary for Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell and former U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.

Child Programs Fight Governor's Cuts

Representatives from the Our Children, Our Future Campaign are lobbying lawmakers for the fourth year at the statehouse. The group, which has no paid lobbyists, advocates for children’s issues.

This year, their priorities include providing mental health services in public schools and increasing access to locally grown, healthy foods, but the campaign will also have to fight budget cuts to child and family services.

The Our Children, Our Future Campaign hosted their annual lobbying day Thursday just across from the state capitol at West Virginia’s Culture Center. More than 900 kids and their families from around the state joined various child advocacy groups at the event.

The campaign is advocating for ten policy issues this year:

Mental Health Services
Child Care Centers
Opposition to Right to Work
Second Chance for Employment Act & Driver’s Licenses
Tax Reform
Juvenile Justice
Combating Substance Abuse
Local Food Access and Profitability
Afterschool Programs
Expanding Broadband Access

But one of the major issues on the table are the budget cuts that could come to child and family services.
Governor Tomblin’s 2017 budget proposal includes cuts across the board for state agencies and even deeper cuts for other service programs. In the past, the governor has tried to cut family services that the Our Children, Our Future Campaign successfully lobbied lawmakers to restore.

This year, Senate President Bill Cole says he and his fellow legislators will continue to look for ways to keep these valuable programs whole.

“I’m proud to say that this is the first year that these programs have not seen a budget cut at the beginning of the legislative session. It is my hope that although we are facing one of the toughest times financially that our state’s ever seen, that we will be able to find a way to assure that we all work together to keep these programs funded and operational.” – Senate President Bill Cole, R-Mercer

But not all groups are safe.

Emily Chittenden-Laird is the Director of the West Virginia Child Advocacy Network. Her group works with kids who have been sexually abused, and it’s facing a cut this year.

“Right now, child advocacy centers in the budget had an 8.3 percent budget cut proposed,” Chittenden-Laird said, “What that looks like on the local level is about a $10,000 per program cut. Our programs run on very slim budgets, and given all the growth we’ve seen over the years and the budget situations, their budgets are very thin.”

Chittenden-Laird says the impact of child abuse over a lifetime is tremendous and that even though it’s a tight budget year lawmakers need to be investing in services to help kids, not cutting services.

“We’re seeing 83 percent more kids walk through our doors than we did six years ago. We have 15 percent more kids than last year. We can’t turn these kids away. Where do we send them? Where do they go? The alternative for them is that they don’t get help, and we just, we have to do right by our children.”

The budget cut is mostly affecting state agencies like Chittenden-Laird’s, but there are other groups who aren’t facing cuts – like Sam Hickman’s.

Hickman is the Executive Director of the West Virginia Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. While his association doesn’t receive state funding, Hickman says the budget cuts will still affect his group.

“The budget cut will have a trickledown effect,” Hickman noted, “for example, we provide continuing education for profession social workers, but a lot of state employees won’t be able to take advantage of that this year, because state agencies have been cut. Their travel, their ability to allow their employees to travel has been really severely limited.”

The Our Children, Our Future Campaign is working with lawmakers to find ways to lessen the cuts programs are facing.

Child Advocacy Groups Question Priorities in Governor Tomblin's Vetoes

Child abuse and poverty prevention advocates are questioning Governor Earl Ray Tomblin’s priorities.

Among the $67 million worth of cuts from the budget bill Thursday was about a $1 million reduction in funding for programs meant to prevent child abuse and child poverty.

“If those services are cut back those children are going to suffer,” Executive Director of the REACHH Family Resource Center in Summers County Beth Sizemore said. “It feels like we’re balancing the budget on the backs of children.”

Governor Tomblin started the 2014 session with a budget that cut funding for several programs.

Sizemore wanted to maintain the same funding as last year so she joined groups like Prevent Child Abuse West Virginia, and West Virginia Healthy Kids and Family Coalition, which is part of the statewide goal to end child poverty in West Virginia through the Our Children Our Future Campaign.

Throughout the session the groups worked together to call on legislators in the House and Senate to restore funding to these agencies … and it worked, until the final budget signing.

“I think the legislature did their job,” Sizemore said. “They listened to their constituents and they restored our funding so I guess what is shocking to me is it seemed like the system worked and then bam we got hit with this.”

The Family Resource Center in Hinton is just one of 24 across the state that will bare a portion of Tomblin’s budget cut burdens.

While Tomblin outlined 42 objections to the budget that was passed by the legislature last week, the groups point to six lines vetoed, totaling about $980,000 including;

Children’s Trust Fund (child abuse and prevention)
In home family education
Family resource networks/centers
Grants for licensed domestic violence programs
Domestic violence legal services fund
Child advocacy centers

“Your budget is a moral document,” Director of the West Virginia Healthy Kids and Family Coalition Stephen Smith said. “It’s a statement of what you think is important of the priorities of what you think is important.”
“If this is our moral document than we’re saying that luxury hotels and other programs and casinos and other things and those things are more important than early childhood programs.”

In a letter outlining cuts from budget vetoes, Governor Tomblin said, “cuts are never easy but are necessary in our state’s current financial situation.”

On the same day, the governor signed into law an extension of the Tourism Development Act which is expected to provide millions in tax breaks to The Greenbrier Resort. Owner Jim Justice says the money will be used to build an NFL training camp for the New Orleans Saints. The camp is expected to bring in tourism dollars to Greenbrier County.

State Coordinator of Prevent Child Abuse West Virginia Jim McKay says budget negotiations included a lot about sustaining the state’s thoroughbred and greyhound racing industry as well.

“There’s funds in the state budget for racetrack modernization funds that’s approximately $9 million each year,” McKay said. “Frankly we feel like thoroughbreds and greyhounds have much more success through the legislative budgeting process than children and families have this year.”

Tomblin also told reporters on Thursday that cuts were necessary to avoid dipping any more into the ‘rainy day fund’ in order to maintain higher bond ratings.

Tomblin told the Charleston Gazette Thursday, “The last thing we want to do is overspend the money and watch our bond rating decline, like it did back in the ’80s. The reason it was created many years ago was for rainy days like this.”

Child Advocacy Groups Question Governor's Priorities

Child abuse and poverty prevention advocates are questioning Governor Earl Ray Tomblin’s priorities.

Among the $67 million worth of cuts from the budget bill Thursday was about a $1 million reduction in funding for programs meant to prevent child abuse and child poverty.

Governor Tomblin started the 2014 session with a budget that cut funding for programs like In Home Family Education, Family Resource Networks, Child Advocacy Centers and other child abuse prevention programs.

Throughout the session the groups worked together to call on legislators in the House and Senate to restore funding to these agencies … and it worked, until the final budget signing.

In this case Tomblin rolled back what the legislature appropriated to his budget recommendations.

In a letter Governor Tomblin said, “…cuts are never easy but are necessary in our state’s current financial situation.” In some items Tomblin said the cuts were made to “determine if any duplication is taking place” in things like family support programs.

Stephen Smith is disappointed to see cuts to programs meant to help the most vulnerable kids and families.

“If this is our moral document than we’re saying that luxury hotels and other programs and casinos and other things and those things are more important than early childhood programs.”