"What is the most important problem facing American children today?
"According to the Academic Pediatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, it is the effects of poverty on the health and well being of young people. But, they concede, there is no sustained focus on childhood poverty, or a unified pediatric voice speaking on the problem, or a comprehensive approach to solving it.
"To try to remedy that, the American Pediatric Association Task Force on Childhood Poverty is beginning a long-term effort to address the problem by looking for solutions that will be effective, sustained and “protected from retrenchment,” according to this brief about the work of the panel....
"There is also increasing evidence that poverty in childhood creates a significant health burden in adulthood that is independent of adult-level risk factors and is associated with low birth weight and increased exposure to toxic stress (causing structural alterations in the brain, long-term epigenetic changes, and increased inflammatory markers)...."
The brief has been added to the Health Care/Pediatricians section of our Resource Center.
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