Assessing the Association Between Maternal Education and Access to Pediatric Specialty Care.

. Timely access to pediatric specialty care continues to be a pervasive issue. We aimed to identify factors associated with unmet pediatric specialty care needs by assessing the association with maternal level of education. . A sample was extracted from the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children's Health, which identified a subset of patients with unmet specialty care needs. Logistic regression models determined the strength of association between our sample and maternal level of education. . An estimated 12.5% of US children had unmet specialty care needs. Independent of confounding variables, children with mothers educated at a level of high school or less were 41% more likely to have unmet specialty care needs compared to those with mothers who were educated at a level greater than high school. . Maternal level of education can be used as a risk factor to assess whether a child will have unmet specialty care needs.