High-Risk Groups — Definition and Identification

Abstract

WHEN President Kennedy signed Public Law 88.156 on October 24, 1963, attention was focused on the urgent need to enlarge maternal and child-health services. The President's Panel on Mental Retardation, whose report¹ provided the framework for Public Law 88.156, pointed to the fact that a reduction in the incidence of mental retardation would be achieved only by a comprehensive attack on all factors pertinent to child growth and human development. The report highlighted the fact that mental retardation and other disabilities were more frequent among groups receiving inadequate maternal and child-health services.^{2 3 4 5} This being so, it must be assumed that . . .