Medical Home Access Among Children with Obesity: The Role of Family-Centered Communication

Objective: The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends all children receive care in a patient-centered medical home. With weight stigma potentially hampering family-centered communication in the care of children with overweight or obesity, we aimed to determine how children's weight status was associated with access to a medical home and its components. Methods: We analyzed 2016-2021 data on children age 10-17 years in the National Survey of Children's Health. Children's weight status was classified as underweight/normal weight, overweight, or obese, based on caregiver-reported height and weight. Outcomes included receiving care in a medical home and each category of the medical home definition (personal health care provider, usual source of health care, family/patient-centered care, care coordination, and assistance with referrals). Results: Based on the study sample (n = 105,111), we estimated that 16% of children were overweight and 16% were obese, while 42% had access to a patient-centered medical home. On multivariable analysis, obesity compared to normal weight was associated with lower access to a medical home (odds ratio: 0.87; 95% confidence intervals: 0.80, 0.95; p = 0.003) and, specifically, with lower access to family-centered care and assistance with care coordination. Conclusions: Children with obesity encounter barriers to accessing care meeting medical home criteria, with one plausible mechanism being that weight stigma disrupts family-centered communication. Lower access to care coordination among children with obesity may also indicate a need to improve the integration of obesity-related specialty care with pediatric primary care services.