State is 47th in well-being of its children

'09 Kids Count report sees Arkansas fall from No. 45

By Nancy Cole

Posted: July 29, 2009 at 5:34 a.m.

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LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas lags behind all but three states, ranking 47th in children's health, education and economic well-being, according to a report released Tuesday by a national child-advocacy group.

The 2009 Kids Count Data Book, the 20th such annual report prepared by the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, ranks all 50 states on 10 key indicators of child well-being. Rankings are based on 2006 and 2007 federal government statistics, the most recent such data available.

Arkansas fell two places from No. 45, the overall ranking it held from 2006 through 2008. Since 2000, the state has improved in four indicators such as having fewer high school dropouts and fewer child deaths, while it declined in six others, including an increase in children living in families with no full-time working parent.

"Hearing that Arkansas regressed in these important indicators of how our children are faring is disappointing," said Rich Huddleston, executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.

He attributed many of Arkansas' problems to persistent poverty, noting that this year's data book doesn't yet reflect the current recession.

"Of course, we don't like to see a ranking like that," said Matt DeCample, spokesman for Gov. Mike Beebe.

"The upside is that we're already taking steps to improve that rating."

State efforts to train its work force, and attract and retain businesses, are key to creating "more full-time, year-round employment," DeCample said.

And funding for a statewide trauma system to better coordinate emergency medical services - Act 180 of 2009 - should improve some Kids Count health indicators in the future, he said.

In this year's report, Arkansas tied with Arizona for last place nationwide for its death rate among teens ages 15 to 19. The state's death rate of 98 per 100,000 compares with 64 per 100,000 nationwide.

"It's always discouraging to lose ground," said Dr. Mary Aitken, medical director of the Injury Prevention Center at Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock.

"The vast majority of thedeaths for teens are unintentional injuries and a lot of them are car crashes," she said.

Arkansas' primary-offense seat-belt law, Act 308 of 2009, and changes to the state's graduated driver's license system, Act 394 of 2009, should improve rankings in the future, Aitken said.

"Suicide, ATV crashes [and] drownings are also big issues in the state, and we're trying to make sure people are aware of what they can do to prevent those as well," Aitken said. "The good news is that the teenagers are staying in school, so the children that they have will have better educated parents, and that means they'll be safer."

Arkansas' best score - with a rank of 23rd nationally - was in the percent of high school dropouts. Arkansas' 7 percent, or 11,000 teens ages 16 to 19 who dropped out of school, equals the national average. It's the state's most-improved indicator since 2000.

"I think what you're seeing as far as education goes is the result of the last 10 or so years of work" by the Arkansas Legislature and Govs. Mike Huckabee and Mike Beebe, said Julie Johnson Thompson, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Education.

Increased funding and accountability for education have been critically important, and the state will see more money for education through federal stimulus money, she said.

"I think we'll continue to improve," Thompson said.

Since 2000, Arkansas also has made progress in three other indicators: Child death rate, percentage of teens not attending school and not working, and teen birth rate.

The state suffered its worst setback since 2000 in the percent of children living in families where no parent has full-time, yearround employment. Arkansas' 39 percent rate - 217,000 children - compares with 33 percent nationwide.

Arkansas also lost ground as measured by the remaining five indicators: Percentage of low birthweight babies, teen death rate, percentage of children in poverty, percentage of children in single-parent families, and infant mortality rate.

The 10 indicators vary widely among states, with rates in the worst states averaging two to five times those in the best states.

The five top-ranked states were New Hampshire, Minnesota, Utah, Connecticut and Massachusetts. The bottom five were Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Nationwide since 2000, six of the indicators of child well-being reflect improvement, while four show deterioration.

Each year, the Kids Count report highlights one particular issue. This year's report focuses on the importance of having good data to make good public-policy decisions.

"We are urging the nation to make a deep and sustained commitment to bring the best elements of the information revolution to the challenge of measuring the well-being of kids and families, and especially those kids and families who too often fall off the radar screen," Douglas Nelson, president and chief executive officer of the Casey Foundation, said in a national teleconference.

Nelson stressed the importance of a complete count in the 2010 Census and the need to update the nation's poverty measure.

"The current approach to measuring poverty is terribly out-of-date and misleading. It relies on an estimate from the '60s of the typical family budget - an estimate that bears almost no relationship to the costs faced by real families in today's world," he said.

An alternative definition developed by the National Academy of Sciences in the 1990s would be preferable, Nelson said.

The Kids Count report points to Arkansas' education data system as a model for other states.

The Arkansas Department of Education has been "one of the poster children for the Data Quality Campaign for several years," Thompson said.

Many indicators of child well-being are "interlocked" and driven by multiple factors, said Dr. Richard Nugent, a public healthphysician and chief of the family health branch of the Arkansas Department of Health's Center for Health Advancement.

"So when you're talking about infant mortality, it's not just one cause," Nugent said. "And so we try to work on a lot of different things at once."

For example, babies weighing less than 2,500 grams, or about 5 1 /2 pounds, at birth are most likely to occur in Arkansas among low-income, younger and black mothers, Nugent said.

Low-birthweight babies also account for roughly 60 percent to two-thirds of all the babies who die, he said.

Although Arkansas' rate of neonatal deaths - those in the first month of life - approximates the national average, the state's rate of post-neonatal deaths - those in the next 11 months of life - is "quite a lot higher than the national rate," Nugent said.

Such information helps the state to target its public-health campaigns on such issues as the importance of folic-acid intake for a woman before she becomes pregnant and how to avoid sudden infant death syndrome by putting babies to sleep on their backs, he said.

Other information about Arkansas children in the 2009 Kids Count database includes:

In 2006, 192 adolescents ages 15 to 19 died, most in automobile accidents.

In 2007, 178,000 children were living in poverty, defined as an income below $21,027 for a family of two adults and two children.

In 2006, 5,946 babies were born to mothers ages 15 to 19.

In 2006, 350 babies died before their first birthday.

In 2007, 17,000 teens ages 16 to 19 were not attending school and not working.

In 2006, 146 children ages 1 to 14 died, most due to accidents.

In 2007, 226,000 children lived in single-parent families.

In 2006, 3,749 babies weighed 1 less than 5/2 pounds at birth.

In 2007, one-quarter of the state's population, or 700,537 people, were under the age of 18.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11, 16 on 07/29/2009

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