Improving health services for foster youth: Multidisciplinary and multistakeholder perspectives and recommendations Janet U. Schneiderman a, ⁎ , Devon Brooks a , Barbara Facher b , Jennifer Amis b a University of Southern California School of Social Work, 669 West 34th Street, SWC 226, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0411, United States b The Alliance for Children's Rights, United States Received 3 June 2006; received in revised form 6 August 2006; accepted 23 August 2006 Available online 16 November 2006 Abstract Children in foster care exhibit physical health problems at alarming rates. Moreover, these problems are frequently undiagnosed before entry into foster and too often go untreated while in foster care. To address the inadequate system of health care for foster children, a multidisciplinary summit was held in Los Angeles, California. In addition to synthesizing the literature related to health care for foster children, this article analyzes information collected at the summit, including information on health needs of foster children, barriers to health services and recommendations for improving health services to foster youth. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Foster children; Chronic health problem; Health services 1. Introduction Children in foster care have significantly more health problems than children in the general population (Hansen, Kagle, & Black, 2004), and exhibit a multitude of chronic health problems (Barton, 1999; National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 2004; Stein, Evans, Mazumdar, & Rae-Grant, 1996). The best available data suggest that as many as four out of five foster children have chronic health problems. In their study of 213 children in foster care, Halfon, Children and Youth Services Review 29 (2007) 313 – 328 www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 213 821 1338; fax: +1 213 821 2088. E-mail address: juschnei@usc.edu (J.U. Schneiderman). 0190-7409/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2006.08.005