Utah ranks 6th best for child well-being
But Utah is 6th best in nation for how its children are doing
"After many, many years of improved child well-being . . . we've now hit a plateau," said William O'Hare, national KIDS COUNT coordinator.
"There was an awful lot of improvement in child well-being in the 1990s," he said. "Post 2000, things aren't getting worse, but they're not getting better. We've kind of lost the momentum we gained in the 1990s in improving the lives of children."
Utah ranks sixth in the nation in overall child well-being in today's report, a jump from ninth place last year. The Annie E. Casey Foundation releases the national survey each year.
"When you look at all of the indicators . . . we do well in all of them compared to everybody else," said Terry Haven, Utah's KIDS COUNT coordinator. "The danger in doing that and comparing yourself to everybody else is that the kids who are hungry don't care how the kids in Maine are doing. They're hungry here in Utah."
Although the state gained ground on several measures, including the percent of children living in single-parent families, teen birth rate and infant mortality rate, the state slipped significantly in its percent of children living in poverty.
"That poverty issue is a huge issue because it does impact so much of what we look at," Haven said. "When we see our poverty rates going up, that's a cause for concern."
Federal budget cuts to programs such as Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and the child-care component of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families have left an ugly picture for the nation's children, O'Hare said.
"The fact that 18 percent of our kids are growing up in poverty in the richest, most developed country is just a sad comment on our priorities," he said.
In other measures, Utah's best ranking came in the number of children living in single-parent families, topping the nation with a 19 percent drop between 2000 and 2004. The state's worst ranking, 20th, came in its child death rate, with 21 out of every 100,000 children between 1 and 14 years old dying in 2003.
A large number of these child deaths can be attributed to motor vehicle accidents. And since children aren't often behind the wheel, the ranking proves the need to educate adults about how to keep children safe in and around cars, said Sharon Hines-Stringer, coordinator of Safe Kids Utah.
"We need to make sure that the message is out there, that parents know how to buckle their children up and they know how long to keep their children buckled up," she said. "(Adults) should model that safe behavior by being buckled for every ride, no matter how short the ride."
E-mail: awelling@desnews.com
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