The US government’s report America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2007 released yesterday marks the tenth issue of a nationwide snapshop of the wellbeing of America’s children.
Produced by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics (formed in 1997 from six federal agencies and the Office of Management and Budget) the report reveals little has changed since last year in the overall wellbeing of American children.
Within the overall picture however, the situation is mixed, with some trends showing a decline in specific areas of wellbeing while others show an improvement.
The percentage of youths involved in serious crime is up, but then so is the percentage of teens who complete high school.
The proportion of children living with at least one working parent is up, but so is the proportion living in inadequate or crowded housing.
On balance, the picture on health is not very encouraging, with a rise in the percentage of children with low birthweight compared to last year, and the percentage of older children who are overweight also going up.
The rise in low birthweight children has been rising steadily since 1984, where it was 6.7 per cent, to 7.9 per cent in 2003, 8.2 per cent in 2004 and 8.2 per cent in 2005.
In a teleconference to the press, Dr. Duane Alexander, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development said that low birthweight infants are at increased risk of dying during the first year of life, and have increased risk of disability. The steady increase in low birthweight is probably explained by the increase in the number of multiple and preterm births, he said.
More research is now looking at ways prevent preterm births, said Alexander.
The percentage of children aged between 6 and 17 who were overweight has gone up from 6 per cent in 1976-1980 to 11 per cent in 1988-1994, and has continued to increase to 18 per cent in 2003-2004.
Another worrying statistic is the number of children covered by health insurance, which went down to 89 per cent in 2005 compared with 90 per cent in 2004. But a positive note is struck by the fact that the proportion of children with at least one parent who is working all year round is up from 77.6 in 2004 to 78.3 per cent in 2005, although it did peak to 80 per cent in 2000.
This is a significant indicator because:
“Secure parental employment helps to reduce the psychological toll on families, brought on by parental unemployment and underemployment,” said Alexander in a press statement.
Another welcome overall trend is that the percentage of children living in households classed as “food insecure” went down to 17 per cent in 2005 compared with 19 per cent in 2004.
This means more children are living in households where they get enough food for an active and healthy life. The indicator is calculated from self report surveys that assess a household’s access to food, its intake, quality of diet, and anxiety about having an adequate supply of food.
And the percentage of children living in households with very low food security also went down, from 1.3 per cent in 1995 to 0.7 per cent in 1999 and it has hovered around that figure ever since. The report explains what is meant by very low food security:
“In a subset of food-insecure households – those classified as having very low food security among children – a parent or guardian reported that at some time during the year one or more children were hungry, skipped a meal, or did not eat for a whole day because the household could not afford enough food.”
Childhood immunization rates have risen over the past decade from 71 per cent to 81 per cent of children between 19 and 35 months now having the recommended series of vaccinations. This news was welcomed by another teleconference attendee, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) National Center for Health Statistics, Edward Sondik.
Sondik also drew attention to the fact that the birth rate among teens has dropped 40 per cent over the past 15 years, with the greatest reduction being among white teens, where the drop is as much as 60 per cent over the period.
“But still, the birth rate for black teens is about three times of that for whites, and the rate for Hispanics is four times the rate for whites,” said Sondik.
Respiratory illness in children is an important area of concern, with the proportion of child asthma sufferers being at 9 per cent. The prevalence of asthma in children is even higher among Black, non-Hispanic and Puerto Rican children (13 and 20 percent, respectively), said the report.
An aspect of environment that is linked to asthma is pollution. Here the trend is intriguing: the proportion of children living in counties where pollution was higher than allowable levels was 65 per cent in 1999, then down to 46 per cent in 2004, then up again to 60 per cent in 2005.
The whole report presents 38 key indicators of important aspects of children’s lives, based on research and measured regularly to show trends over time; it claims to be representative of segments of the population rather than one particular group.
Each time the report is issued, there is a backpressure on the various contributing agencies to improve the quality of their monitoring and cover gaps, particularly in areas such as child maltreatment, drinking water quality, and the mental health of children.
The latest report covers 8 major areas: Health, Health Care, Education, Behaviour, Physical Environment and Safety, Family and Social Environment, Economic Circumstances, and Demographics.
Click here to see full report, including highlights.
Written by: Catharine Paddock
Writer: Medical News Today