Introduction to the special issue: Clinical approaches to address health disparities in pediatric psychology

Abstract

The demographics of the communities that pediatric psychologists serve are rapidly becoming more diverse. This special issue focuses on clinical approaches to consider in ensuring access to and effective delivery of services for children and adolescents from racial, ethnic, and low-income backgrounds. Specifically, this special issue includes papers focused on 3 central themes: factors affecting service utilization among diverse families, strategies to engage and intervene with diverse youth and families, and the use of paraprofessionals to increase access to behavioral health services. With recent public health issues, there is perhaps no better time for our field to move beyond traditional approaches to clinical care. The work included in this special issue provides clear examples for pediatric psychologists to follow and integrate into their clinical settings. These approaches provide direction to better serve diverse and low-income children and families, improve children and adolescents' behavioral health outcomes, and ultimately address disparities in pediatric behavioral health. This special issue depicts evolving trends in how pediatric psychologists can serve diverse and low-income families more effectively to address health disparities. Factors affecting service use, approaches to engage families and provide treatment, and strategic use of paraprofessionals to increase access to services are highlighted. Incorporating these approaches across settings has the potential to address service gaps and improve behavioral health outcomes for our most vulnerable children.