Updated footnotes on blood pressure, anemia and lead are the only changes in the new AAP Periodicity Schedule, the guide to recommended screenings and other preventive care of healthy patients from infancy to adolescence.
The AAP policy statement 2019 Recommendations for Preventive Pediatric Health Care, or Periodicity Schedule, is from the Committee on Practice and Ambulatory Medicine and the Bright Futures Periodicity Schedule Workgroup. The recommendations cover screenings, assessments, physical examinations, procedures and anticipatory guidance for well-child visits in conjunction with the Bright Futures guidelines.
Children with developmental, psychosocial and chronic disease issues may require more frequent visits.
Updated from April 2017, the Periodicity Schedule is available at www.aap.org/periodicityschedule and announced in the March issue of Pediatrics.
Changes in the 2019 Periodicity Schedule
- Blood pressure: Footnote 6 states that screening should occur per the Clinical Practice Guideline for Screening and Management of High Blood Pressure in Children and Adolescents(2017), http://bit.ly/2RE5kMd. The footnote still advises that blood pressure measurement in infants and children with specific risk conditions should be performed at visits before age 3 years.
- Anemia: Footnote 25 now says to perform a risk assessment or screening, as appropriate, per recommendations in AAP Pediatric Nutrition: Policy of the American Academy of Pediatrics(iron chapter).
- Lead: Footnote 25 advises that when treating children at risk of lead exposure, consult the 2016 policy statement Prevention of Childhood Lead Toxicity, http://bit.ly/2VFEOS3.
Also added is a resource from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Low Level Lead Exposure Harms Children: A Renewed Call for Primary Prevention, http://bit.ly/2THs23J.