Incomplete check-ups are common for kids

Doctors agree that no matter how healthy a child is, basic preventive care is always necessary to ensure proper growth and development.

But a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates many families fail to take this advice. Millions of children and adolescents don't receive preventive health services, such as complete wellness check-ups and dental care.

"Children have distinct health care needs that are different than those of adults," write the authors of the report. "They undergo rapid and constant physical, physiological, and developmental changes from infancy through adolescence. Their unique health needs in various life stages of development present different opportunities for health care providers to offer clinical preventive services that can improve the health of infants, children, and adolescents and promote healthy lifestyles to increase the opportunity for all children to achieve their full potential."

According to the report, published on Wednesday by the CDC, many young Americans are not receiving necessary vaccines, screenings, or counseling for issues such as reproductive health, contraception and mental illness. The report, which is based on state health records, focuses on 11 clinical preventive services such as disease diagnoses or prevention, screenings for hearing loss and vision, and breastfeeding counseling for expectant mothers.

The authors of the report found that in 2007 nearly 8 in 10 parents of children aged 10 to 47 months were not offered a comprehensive screening for developmental delays by a health care provider.

More than half -- 56 percent -- of children and adolescents had not visited a dentist in the past year, and 9 out of 10 did not receive dental sealants or fluoride treatments to prevent cavities.

The report also confirms that despite its effectiveness and availability, many young females aged 13 to 17 don't receive the HPV vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus, which is linked to cancer. Nearly half of all girls aged 13 to 17 did not get the vaccine in 2011. Additionally, almost two-thirds of sexually active females aged 15 to 21 years had not received chlamydia screening in the past year.

And the youngest of patients often receive insufficient care. According to the report, between 2009 and 2010, about half of all infants who failed their hearing screening were not documented to have received testing needed to diagnose hearing loss. And only 22 percent of 5-year-olds had ever had their vision checked by a healthcare provider.

The authors of the report say racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities may be a contributing cause for lack of preventive care. The report found a number of disparities: Uninsured children are not as likely as insured children to receive preventive care services and Hispanic children were less likely than non-Hispanic children to have reported vision screening.

"The findings in this supplement indicate that millions of infants, children, and adolescents in the United States have not benefited from key clinical preventive services, and that there are large disparities by demographics, geography, and health-care coverage and access in the use of these services," write the authors.

The Affordable Care Act aims to improve access to basic health care services and preventive care. However, it's too early to determine if increased access to health insurance will markedly improve these rates since some of the discouraging numbers are a result of lack of protocols at medical institutions and individual failures on part of health care providers.