Pediatrics in the community: rattling the bars for change: medical homes for youth exiting juvenile detention.

1. Mana Golzari, MD 1. University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif 1. C. Andrew Aligne, MD, MPH In 2003, Mana Golzari was a medical student at Stanford working at a juvenile detention medical center. She was struck by the poor health status of the incarcerated youth. Nationally, more than 2 million children and adolescents pass through juvenile detention each year, and they have substantially higher morbidity than their nonincarcerated peers. (1) Despite a 2001 American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement recommending establishment of a medical home before release and although it is mandated that incarcerated youth receive medical care, such services often are discontinued on the youth's discharge back into the community. (2)(3) Dr Golzari realized that the released youths were not being enrolled into public medical insurance …