Racial/ethnic minority children's use of psychiatric emergency care in California's Public Mental Health System.
OBJECTIVE
We examined rates and intensity of crisis services use by race/ethnicity for 351,174 children younger than 18 years who received specialty mental health care from California's 57 county public mental health systems between July 1998 and June 2001.


METHODS
We used fixed-effects regression for a controlled assessment of racial/ethnic disparities in children's use of hospital-based services for the most serious mental health crises (crisis stabilization services) and community-based services for other crises (crisis intervention services).


RESULTS
African American children were more likely than were White children to use both kinds of crisis care and made more visits to hospital-based crisis stabilization services after initial use. Asian American/Pacific Islander and American Indian/Alaska Native children were more likely than were White children to use hospital-based crisis stabilization services but, along with Latino children, made fewer hospital-based crisis stabilization visits after an initial visit.


CONCLUSIONS
African American children used both kinds of crisis services more than did White children, and Asian Americans/Pacific Islander and American Indians/Alaska Native children visited only when they experienced the most disruptive and troubling kind of crises, and made nonrecurring visits.
Center for Mental Health Services Research, School of Social Welfare, 120 Haviland Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-7400, USA. snowden@berkeley.edu
Lonnie R
LR
Snowden
Mary C
MC
Masland
Anne M
AM
Libby
Neal
N
Wallace
Kya
K
Fawley
D000293:Adolescent; D002140:California; D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003156:Community Mental Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003419:Crisis Intervention / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008484:Medicaid / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008913:Minority Groups / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011204:Poverty Areas