"At the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies last week, there was a new call for pediatricians to address childhood poverty as a national problem, rather than wrestling with its consequences case by case in the exam room.
Poverty damages children’s dispositions and blunts their brains. We’ve seen articles about the language deficit in poorer homes and the gaps in school achievement. These remind us that — more so than in my mother’s generation — poverty in this country is now likely to define many children’s life trajectories in the harshest terms: poor academic achievement, high dropout rates, and health problems from obesity and diabetes to heart disease, substance abuse and mental illness...."
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/poverty-as-a-childhood-disease/
See also:
The most important problem facing American children today
http://acesconnection.com/profiles/blogs/the-most-important-problem-facing-american-children-today
The APA/AAP brief has been added to the Health Care/Pediatricians section of our Resource Center.
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