Definition: Estimated percentage of children ages 0-17 with special health care needs, by race/ethnicity and household income level (e.g., in 2024, 18.9% of Hispanic/Latino children with special health care needs in California lived on income at or above 400% of their household's federal poverty threshold).
Data Source: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, National Survey of Children's Health (Nov. 2025).
Footnote: Race/ethnicity categories are mutually exclusive. The federal poverty threshold was $31,812 for a family of two adults and two children in 2024. Due to changes in methodology, these estimates should not be compared with data from earlier years. Children with special health care needs (CSHCN) have or are at increased risk for a chronic physical, developmental, behavioral, or emotional condition and require health and related services of a type or amount beyond that required by children generally. These estimates are based on a survey of the population and are subject to both sampling and nonsampling error. The notation S refers to estimates that have been suppressed because (a) there were fewer than 3 respondents in that group, (b) there were fewer than 20 total respondents and all were in the same group, or (c) the margin of error for the estimate is 10 percentage points or greater. The annotation [!] indicates that the estimate's margin of error is greater than 5 percentage points but less than 10 percentage points. For more information, see https://www.childhealthdata.org/learn-about-the-nsch/NSCH.
