title: The health status of Roma children--a medical or social issue?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Most studies dealing with health problems of the Roma population suggests that a low economic status significantly contributes to their overall poor health. In Serbia, Roma people are members of a marginalized ethnic group with a low socioeconomic status which contributes to their much higher morbidity and mortality rate compared with the majority population. The questions we asked in this paper were: Are Roma children discriminated during hospital care? Do they get the same treatment as the non-Roma children?
  
  
  METHODS
  To answer these questions, we examined medical records of 59 Roma children and compared with 59 records of non-Roma children in order to determine whether there are any differences in the health status, as well as the length, course, outcome, and cost of treatment.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Roma children have statistically significant more comorbidity, more malnutritions, more skin diseases (especially parasitic and fungal infections) and were more frequently anemic. Also, the length of hospitalization of Roma children was significantly higher, as well as the number of laboratory tests performed and number of drugs prescribed, which contribute to the significantly higher costs of treatment for Roma children compared to non-Roma children. However, a significantly lower number of Roma children were discharged as "completely cured".
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results of our study does not support hypothesis of discrimination of Roma children concerning medical treatment in observed hospital. At the same time, our results suggests that social interventions (e.g. hygienic housing, water supply, etc.) and prevention measures could prevent necessity of hospitalized treatment of Roma children and could diminish the drain on the health budget spent on treating the consequences of social neglect.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Child and Youth Health Care of Vojvodina, Novi Sad, Serbia. djurovicdusanka@gmail.com.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Djurovic
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Prcic
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Milojkovic
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Konstantinidis
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tamburlini
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002669:Child Welfare / Q000191:economics / Q000208:ethnology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015897:Comorbidity; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000191:economics; D006304:Health Status; D054625:Healthcare Disparities / Q000191:economics / Q000208:ethnology*; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000191:economics; D006798:Housing; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007902:Length of Stay; D008913:Minority Groups; D054525:Minority Health / Q000191:economics / Q000208:ethnology*; D009752:Nutritional Status; D011203:Poverty; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D006178:Romani People; D055771:Serbia / Q000453:epidemiology; D062487:Social Marginalization; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013997:Time Factors