Relationship between body mass index and medical care expenditures for North Carolina adolescents enrolled in Medicaid in 2004.

Introduction: Many studies document that overweight and obese adults have substantially higher medical care expenditures than do adults of normal weight, but comparable data for children or adolescents are few. This study examines patterns of expenditure for medical care and use of medical care services among a sample of North Carolina adolescents enrolled in Medicaid, stratified by body mass index categories.

Methods: North Carolina public health records, which include clinically measured height and weight, were linked to 2004 North Carolina Medicaid enrollment records to find adolescents aged 12-18 years whose records matched.

Children who are medically fragile in North Carolina: using Medicaid data to estimate prevalence and medical care costs in 2004.

Objectives: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate a method of using medical insurance paid claims and enrollment data to estimate the prevalence of selected health conditions in a population and to profile associated medical care costs. The examples presented here use North Carolina Medicaid data to produce estimates for children ages 0-19 who are medically fragile. These children with serious health conditions are a small subset of all children with special health care needs.

A review of available data on the health of the Latino population in North Carolina.

Objective: To portray major health problems and conditions in the Latino population of North Carolina.

Study Design: Presentation of descriptive information from North Carolina data sets on Latino health issues, with whites and African Americans as comparison groups.

Data Sources/study Setting: Statewide data on the health of the Latino population are provided from the following data sets: North Carolina Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), death certificates, North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner records, sexually transmitted disease reports, reported pregnancies, certificates of live birth, North Carolina Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), and North Carolina Birth Defects Monitoring Program (BDMP) cases.