The most recent University of Michigan Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health found that 31 percent of parents said they follow advice from their child's health care provider all of the time according to a report at the Eureka Alert website on March 18, 2013.
“Parents from lower-income households (<$60,000 annually) were more than twice as likely to say they follow provider advice occasionally (17 percent), compared to parents from higher-income households (8 percent). Black and Hispanic parents are twice as likely to follow provider advice only occasionally (22 percent and 18 percent, respectively) compared to white parents (9 percent).”
Parents are least likely to follow advice on discipline (40 percent), putting the child to sleep (18 percent) and watching TV (13 percent).
Parents were found to be less likely to follow the advice of a pediatrician they rated as less than excellent. Forty-six percent of those parents said they follow provider advice only occasionally. No indication of seeking a physician that the parent trusted more highly was noted in the survey.
Some states may consider some of this negligence as criminal behavior particularly in the instance of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) where allowing a child to go to sleep in the prone position is a known cause of death.
Sarah J. Clark, M.P.H., Associate Director of the Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) Unit at the University of Michigan and Associate Director of the National Poll on Children's Health, cited childhood obesity as being linked to parents allowing the too much consumption of sugar sweetened beverages and excessive TV watching.
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