Preventive health care for Medicaid children.

In this article, we measure the extent to which California Medicaid children in 1981 received preventive care services through either the regular or the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment component of Medicaid. On average, 62 percent of children up to 15 years of age who were continuously enrolled for that year had no preventive care visits, with the percentage increasing with age. Forty-five percent of children under 5 had no preventive visits paid by Medicaid. Children outside of urban areas received fewer preventive care visits than did urban children.