ArticleBMC public health2025
Prevalence of diagnosed mental health conditions among US children with public and commercial insurance.
Article in BMC public health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Long-term growth in child mental health expenditures, 2004-2023.Health affairs scholar · 2026Article
- Insurance-based Disparities in Pediatric Psychiatric Hospitalizations from 2018 to 2021: Examining Mental Health Outcomes among Medicaid and Commercially Insured Youth.The Psychiatric quarterly · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSurveillance of diagnosed mental health conditions is essential for understanding geographic disparities in healthcare access and guiding public health policy. Previous studies provide national or state-level prevalence estimates with limited geographic granularity and few comparisons between insurance types. The aim of this study was to (1) estimate geographical-varying prevalence of diagnosed mental health conditions among Medicaid-insured and commercially-insured children; (2) examine geographic variations in prevalence across urban, suburban, and rural communities; (3) identify census tracts with significantly high and low prevalence; and (4) compare prevalence patterns between public and commercial insurance, and across geographic areas.
methodsWe evaluated the prevalence of MH diagnoses among children (3-17 years) using the 2018 Transformed Medicaid Analytic Files and 2018 claims database of a large commercial insurance provider. We applied spatial projection and smoothing to estimate census tract-level prevalence for overall MH conditions, ADHD, depression, and anxiety.
resultsThe overall diagnosed-MH prevalence was 11.8% in the Medicaid-insured population compared to 5.5% in the commercially insured population. Suburban communities had higher prevalence rates (Medicaid: MH-15.8%, ADHD-7.7%, Depression-3.2%, Anxiety-0.9%; Commercial: MH-5.2%, ADHD-2.4%, Depression-1.1%, Anxiety-0.2%) than rural or urban communities in both the Medicaid-insured and commercially insured populations. Seven states had significantly lower diagnosed-MH prevalence than 30 or more other states. Most states had few to no tracts with low diagnosed-MH prevalence, but some states had high percentages (e.g., 10.0% in urban Florida for Medicaid, 8.7% in urban California for commercial insurance). Conversely, few states had approximately zero tracts with high diagnosed-MH prevalence, with the highest percentages being 8.9% in urban Montana for Medicaid, 9.3% in urban Minnesota for commercial insurance, 7.0% in rural Maine for Medicaid, and 4.8% in rural Massachusetts for commercial insurance.
conclusionVariations in prevalence differed widely across states and by communities' rurality-urbanity. Medicaid-insured children had consistently higher prevalence than commercially insured children throughout all states. Suburban communities demonstrated the highest prevalence rates for both insurance types, with geographic clustering of high-prevalence areas observed particularly in eastern states for Medicaid-insured children and primarily in urban areas for commercially insured children.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.