Barriers to achieving health

The morbidities that affect children who have limited access to health care and who are at risk of failing to reach their optimum health and potential are as much the result of social circumstances as they are the result of an inaccessible health care system. Children growing up in poverty encounter many obstacles that prevent them from seeking or receiving the services of one of the most sophisticated health care industries in the world. A combination of financial barriers, hurdles of distance, inappropriate hours, fragmented and impersonal services, the absence of outreach and follow-up, and cultural differences deprive children of needed services.