Although standard pediatric practice, when caring for a child with serious illness, is to provide support to the child's parents and any siblings, little quantitative information exists regarding what could be considered the "collateral impact" on other family members of having a child with serious illness in the family. This study seeks to provide such information, using existing claims data from the health insurance company, Cigna, to identify children with serious illness and then examining the health and health care of their family members. The investigators hypothesize that, compared to control families without a sick child, parents and siblings of children with serious pediatric illness (SPI) will have more new mental and physical health diagnoses, more new prescriptions, increased levels of Emergency Department (ED) and acute care services, and reduced levels of use of recommended chronic disease management for pre-existing conditions and of preventative services.
