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Objectives : To determine from adolescents using health care their: 1) perceptions of barriers to obtaining health services, 2) views on how to overcome the barriers and 3) views on how to create an adolescent-friendly primary care practice. Design : Six focus group interviews. Methods : Adolescents 11-21 years old from three health centers in the Bronx were recruited. Main Outcome Measures: 1) barriers to accessing health care such as insurance, language barriers, transportation, making an appointment; 2) identifying barriers related to issues of consent and confidentiality; 3) exploring barriers to accessing mental health and related issues; and 4) their visions of an adolescent-friendly office. Results : Thirty-one adolescents, aged 11-21 years old, participated. The majority were Hispanic and 52% were female. Fifty percent of adolescents had a routine visit within the past month. Most adolescents reported experiencing barriers to making an appointment. Additionally, they complained about long waiting times to be seen by providers on the day of their scheduled appointment. Another key barrier was related to knowledge and perceptions about consent and confidentiality. Further, in regard to mental health, many adolescents from focus groups reported that they felt that their primary providers had little interest in this topic and limited knowledge about it. Most of the adolescents reported no barriers with insurance, language or transportation. Their visions of an adolescent-friendly office would include a separate adolescent waiting area equipped with entertainment units. Conclusion: In this study of adolescents who already have primary care providers and are seemingly well-connected to the health care system, there remained significant reported barriers to accessing necessary health services.

Background: The impact of universal masking on transmission of endemic respiratory viruses in children’s hospitals is unknown. Our objective was to measure the association between universal masking by healthcare personnel and the incidence of non-SARS-CoV-2 healthcare-associated viral respiratory infections (HA-VRIs) in a free-standing academic pediatric medical center during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: In this quasi-experimental study, we measured the incidence rate of non-SARS-CoV-2 HA-VRIs (VRI diagnosed on or after hospital day 3 by one of several molecular assays) during three time periods: prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (pre-intervention: September 2013 - February 2020); during universal masking (intervention: May 2021 - March 2023); and after universal masking was lifted (post-intervention: April 2023 - November 2023). Although universal masking was implemented in late March 2020, we exclude the lockdown period of strict COVID-19-related public health mitigations (i.e., school closures and shelter-in-place advisories) during which community prevalence of non-SARS-CoV-2 respiratory viruses was minimal in our region (March 2020 to April 2021). By negative binomial regression analysis, we compared the level and trend of HA-VRIs between the pre-intervention and intervention periods. Results: Figure 1 illustrates the incidence rate of non-SARS-CoV-2 HA-VRI during the pre-intervention, lockdown, intervention, and post-intervention periods. The aggregate non-SARS-CoV-2 HA-VRI incidence rate during the pre-intervention, intervention, and post-intervention periods was 1.25, 1.84, and 1.96 HA-VRIs per 1000 patient days, respectively. There was no significant difference in the level (p = 0.96) or trend (p = 0.67) of HA-VRI incidence rate between the pre-intervention and intervention periods. Conclusion: Universal masking was not associated with a decrease in the incidence rate of non-SARS-CoV-2 HA-VRIs at our children’s hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings suggest that universal masking may not be an effective infection prevention measure in children’s hospitals during periods of increased endemic respiratory viral transmission in the community.