Poverty is an important patient-reported outcome of therapy and a potential predictor of outcome disparities in pediatric cancer. We previously identified that nearly 30% of pediatric cancer families experience household material hardship (HMH), a concrete measure of poverty including food, energy, or housing insecurity, during the first 6 months of chemotherapy. We conducted a follow-up survey in a subcohort of these families at least 1 year off-therapy and found that 32% reported HMH in early survivorship. Persistently high concrete resource needs off-therapy may have significance for child health and quality of life, and thus represent targets for future investigation.

Context: Specialized pediatric palliative care (SPPC) is increasingly involved in the care of seriously ill children, yet the evidence on its impact has not been comprehensively reviewed.Objective: To assess the effects of providing SPPC to seriously ill children on patient-, caregiver-, and systems-level outcomes.

IMPORTANCE Pediatric palliative care treats patients with a wide variety of advanced illness conditions, often with substantial levels of pain and other symptoms. Clinical and research advancements regarding symptom management for these patients are hampered by the scarcity of data on symptoms as well as an overreliance on clinician report. OBJECTIVE To provide a detailed description of the symptoms among patients receiving pediatric palliative care based on parental report via a validated, structured symptom assessment measure. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Baseline data for this cross-sectional analysis were collected between April 10, 2017, and February 5, 2020, from pediatric palliative care programs in 7 children's hospitals located in Akron