Study: Food allergy costs more for poor kids
By Deborah Netburn, Los Angeles Times
What is the financial toll of having a kid with a food allergy? The answer may depend on how much money you have.
A study published last month in Pediatrics found that food-allergic children from households that earn less than $50,000 a year incur 2.5 times the cost of emergency room visits and hospital stays compared with their peers from families that are in a higher-income bracket.
At the same time, families that make more than $100,000 a year report spending more of their own money on visits to allergy specialists for their kids, as well as medicines paid for out of pocket, compared with families from lower-income groups.