|
Report
Says Kids' Wellbeing Improving
By
Melissa Schorr
NEW YORK (Reuters
Health) - In 2000, US children were less likely to smoke cigarettes
but were more likely to suffer asthma, while they were less likely
to die from a firearm and more likely to have health insurance
coverage, according to a new government report.
The report,
released Thursday by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and
Family Statistics, details the well-being of the nation's 70 million
children. Twenty federal agencies contributed to the final report,
which was spearheaded by the National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development.
``We feel
good that things are moving in positive direction,'' Alisa Jenny,
a coordinator of the report and a statistician at the National
Center for Health Statistics, told Reuters Health. ``I think the
'90s have been a good decade for children.''
The report
found encouraging news on many fronts: Americans younger than
18 were less likely to be living in poverty, were more likely
to have a parent working and were more likely to be covered by
health insurance.
Some other
findings from the report:
-- Death rates
for teens aged 15 to 19 fell to 71 deaths per 100,000, down from
89 per 100,000 in 1991, which the authors attribute partly to
a drop in deaths involving firearms.
-- The percentage
of high school seniors who reported smoking cigarettes daily within
the last month decreased from 25% in 1997 to 21% in 2000. However,
other measures of children's health, such as the rate of heavy
drinking and illicit drug use, showed no decline.
-- The teen
birth rate for girls aged 15 to 17 hit an all-time low of 29 births
per 1,000. The report indicates no further improvements in this
year's rates of childhood immunizations, low birth weight babies
or infant mortality.
The report
also includes a new measurement on asthma rates, finding that
the percentage of children with asthma has increased from 3% in
1981 to around 5% today.
``We don't
know why there's been an increase in asthma,'' Jenny said. ``There
are a lot of different factors that could contribute, from the
environment to better diagnosis. This focus is important because
asthma limits children's activities.''
Jenny added,
``This report provides policy makers and the public measures of
how we're doing and what areas we need to address. It allows us
to see where we are as a nation and to see the direction we're
headed in.''
The report
is available for public viewing at http://www.childstats.gov.
Reference
Source 89
For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use
PreventDisease.com's "Quick
Prevention Resources".
|
