Health inequities in Primary Care Pediatrics. Positioning of the Spanish Association of Primary Care Pediatrics

Introduction and objective: in order to carry out a study of inequities in health care in Spain, the Spanish Association of Pediatric Primary Care (AEPap) has set out to analyze whether there is a relationship between the portfolio of services that is applied in each Spanish region and health spending per capita.

Method: through a survey to regional members of AEPap they have tried to answer 16 questions that include: the number of children per pediatrician, the existence of pediatric nursing, the vaccination schedule, waiting times in early and psycho-pedagogical services and the availability of diagnostic means (prick test, ultrasound, spirometry, rapid strep test and impedanciometry)... An attempt has been made to correlate the availability of these elements in the service portfolio with the expenditure per inhabitant of the Spanish regions, called autonomous communities (AC), according to data from the Ministry of Health.

Results: there exists a direct correlation between the AC that have a higher health expenditure with having fewer assigned children per pediatrician, the availability of pediatric nursing, shorter waiting times for early care and psychopedagogical services, and a greater availability of diagnostic methods in primary health care consultations.

Conclusions: the portfolio of services of the National Health System is not carried out homogeneously throughout Spain. The Autonomous Communities with the lowest expenditure per person offer lower quality services to childhood and adolescence of these Autonomous Communities, which implies an inequity in the nation’s health supply.