Ruth E.K. Stein M.D.
Professor
Department of Pediatrics
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Email: ruth.stein@einstein.yu.edu
Discipline: Pediatrics
Expertise: Child Health, Health Risks
Investigator Award 
Development of a Typology of Risk for Child Health: The Intersection of Social and Medical FactorsAward Year: 1999 Social and environmental factors have powerful effects on health status, utilization, and costs of care among children. Child health policy in the U.S., however, has focused primarily on biomedical determinants of health, ignoring most social risks. This project augments traditional biological risk factors such as previous access to health services and chronic illness used by policymakers. Drs. Stein and Bauman consider social risk factors, like poverty and parental mental illness, which contribute to child morbidity and the cost of delivering care. Their goal is to improve the ability of policymakers to predict short-term health outcomes (cost and utilization of care) and long-term health outcomes (health status and functioning). They: 1) conceptualize and define social and biomedical risks of children; 2) create independent measures for social and biomedical risk; 3) combine these into a typology that describes the risk experienced by children from the combination of biomedical and social factors; and 4) apply the typology to existing child health data sets.
Background 
Ruth E.K. Stein is a pediatrician who works in research and advocacy for children, especially those with chronic health conditions. She is professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Children's Hospital at Montefiore. Her research has been supported by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, National Institute of Mental Health, ASPE, HRSA, and numerous foundations. Her work has involved the development of a number of measures that are widely used in the assessment of outcomes for children with disabilities and their families. In 1995, Dr. Stein received the Research Award of the Ambulatory Pediatric Association. She has over 150 publications and has edited two books relating to pediatric chronic illness, psychosocial and behavioral pediatrics, and health care for children. She serves on several editorial boards and the Research Committees of the Ambulatory Pediatric Association and the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. Dr. Stein is a Past President of the Ambulatory Pediatric Association, and is a member of the Research Consortium on Children with Chronic Conditions and the Behavioral Pediatrics Consortium. She currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Center for Child Health Research and on the Board of Children, Youth and Families of the National Academies of Science and the Institute of Medicine. She also chairs the New York Children's Health Forum based at the New York Academy of Medicine and co-chairs a study of the Board of Children, Youth and Families on the Evaluation of Child Health, Safety and Well-Being.
- Stein, R.E.K., Siegel, M.J., Bauman, L.J. Are Children of Moderately Low Birth Weight at Increased Risk for Poor Health? A New Look at an Old Question. Pediatrics, 2006, 118(1): 217-23.
- Bauman, L.J., Silver, E.J., Stein, R.E.K. Cumulative Social Disadvantage and Child Health. Pediatrics, 2006, 117(4): 1321-8.
- Stein, R.E., Silver, E.J. Comparing Different Definitions of Chronic Conditions in a National Data Set. Ambulatory Pediatrics, 2002, 2(1): 63-70.
- Stein, R.E., Silver, E.J., Bauman, L.J. Shortening the Questionnaire for Identifying Children with Chronic Conditions: What Is the Consequence? Pediatrics, 2001, 107(4): E61.