Central Valley moms of infants show high rates of childhood trauma
For the first time, Kidsdata now has data that paint a unique picture of childhood trauma experienced by mothers of infants across California.
2011-2012 data from the California Department of Public Health’s Maternal and Infant Health Assessment show two counties (among counties with data), Kern and Stanislaus, where more than 10 percent of postpartum mothers say they experienced four or more childhood hardships, from not having their basic needs met, to parental legal trouble or incarceration, to foster care placement, among others. The higher number of traumatic events a child experiences, the more long-lasting impacts those events may have on the child’s physical, mental, and emotional health.
Fifteen percent of the state’s postpartum mothers say they lived with a parent or guardian with a serious substance abuse problem during their childhoods. When broken down by county however, the Central Valley again shows a disproportionate amount of trauma. In Kern and Stanislaus counties, roughly 20 percent of postpartum mothers were exposed to serious substance abuse during their childhoods. Similarly, Tulare, Stanislaus and Fresno counties were among the counties with the highest percentages of postpartum mothers who experienced family hunger during their childhoods.
Childhood adversity can lead to serious, long-term impacts on one’s health and well being. Resilience, an adaptive response to hardship, can mitigate the effects of adverse childhood experiences.
A number of policies and programs can help curb the effects of childhood adversity, including strengthening parent education, improving the social safety net for families in need, and institutionalizing “trauma-informed” community services and health care.
Related Data
Childhood Adversity and Resilience (summary)
Children with Two or More Adverse Experiences (Parent Reported)
Children Who Are Usually/Always Resilient (Parent Reported)
Prevalence of Childhood Hardships (Maternal Retrospective)
Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (Adult Retrospective)
Helpful Links
Maternal and Infant Health Assessment
California Essentials for Childhood Initiative
Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative: Childhood Trauma and Positive Health
Kidsdata Tip
Kidsdata launched a suite of data about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) at the ACEs Conference in San Francisco last month. Read more.
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One in five CA adults reports being physically abused as a child
Twenty one percent of California’s adults with children living in their homes report that they were hit, beaten, kicked, or physically hurt by their own parents, or other adults in the home, when they were children. Ten percent say that they were sexually abused as a child. The survey data, now available on Kidsdata, are the first ever released on childhood trauma among the state’s adults with children living in their homes, versus all adults.
The data come from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), which is the largest continuously conducted health survey system in the world.
Childhood adversity, sometimes referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), has come to be seen as an urgent public health crisis. A wealth of research shows that parents who experienced abuse as children have a higher likelihood of abusing their own children. However, parents who were abused do not all repeat the cycle of violence with their own children. Kidsdata’s release also includes data on child resiliency, or the ability to mitigate the effects of childhood trauma.
The higher number of traumatic events a child experiences, the more long-lasting impacts those events may have on the child’s physical, mental and emotional health. These events often lead to serious complications in adulthood, such as chronic diseases, substance abuse and depression. Consequently, parents who were abused as children are more susceptible to these problems as adults, all of which can impair their ability to meet their children’s needs.
Kidsdata’s new data help policymakers, researchers, social workers and practitioners identify opportunities to prevent childhood trauma, allay its effects, and develop better community support systems that promote resiliency. While California has made strides in these areas, continued efforts are needed to ensure that all children thrive and reach their full potential.
Related Data
Childhood Adversity and Resilience (summary)
Children with Two or More Adverse Experiences (Parent Reported)
Children Who Are Usually/Always Resilient (Parent Reported)
Prevalence of Childhood Hardships (Maternal Retrospective)
Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (Adult Retrospective)
Helpful Links
California Essentials for Childhood Initiative
Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative: Childhood Trauma and Positive Health
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Adverse Childhood Experiences
Kidsdata Tip
How do you take your data? Kidsdata’s got tables, bars, trends, maps and pies – try them out!
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Childhood adversity data now available on Kidsdata
Today, Kidsdata introduces a brand-new topic to our site, Childhood Adversity and Resilience. The release today coincides with the opening of the Conference on Adverse Childhood Experiences in San Francisco.
The new suite of data complements other Kidsdata topics such as Child Abuse and Neglect, Intimate Partner Violence, and Family Income and Poverty. It includes 56 indicators about the prevalence of adversity and resiliency among California’s children, among mothers of infants reflecting on their childhood, and, exclusive to Kidsdata, among California adults with children living in their homes reflecting on their childhood.
Specific childhood adversity indicators give us a picture of the prevalence of physical, sexual, and verbal abuse inflicted on California children, and exposure to violence, substance abuse, and mental illness. Kidsdata’s release today also includes data on child resiliency, or the ability to mitigate the effects of childhood trauma.
Childhood adversity, sometimes referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), has come to be seen as an urgent public health crisis. The higher number of traumatic events a child experiences, the more long-lasting impacts those events may have on the child’s physical, mental, and emotional health. These events often lead to serious complications in adulthood, such as chronic diseases, substance abuse, and depression.
California-specific data were compiled from the National Survey of Children’s Health, the Maternal and Infant Health Assessment, and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.
This new topic was made possible by a partnership between Kidsdata and the California Essentials for Childhood Initiative and its Shared Data and Outcomes Workgroup, as well as numerous organizations that provided data: Public Health Institute’s Survey Research Group, the California Department of Public Health’s Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health Program, the University of California, San Francisco’s Center on Social Disparities in Health, and the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative.
Today’s data release helps policymakers, researchers, social workers, and practitioners identify opportunities to prevent childhood trauma, allay its effects, and develop better community support systems that promote resiliency. While California has made strides in these areas, continued efforts are needed to ensure that all children thrive and reach their full potential.
Related Data
Childhood Adversity and Resilience (summary)
Children with Two or More Adverse Experiences (Parent Reported)
Children Who Are Usually/Always Resilient (Parent Reported)
Prevalence of Childhood Hardships (Maternal Retrospective)
Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (Adult Retrospective)
Helpful Links
California Essentials for Childhood Initiative
Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative: Childhood Trauma and Positive Health
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Adverse Childhood Experiences
Kidsdata Tip
Like all data on Kidsdata, the new Childhood Adversity and Resilience indicators can be easily customized, visualized, shared, and in many cases, drilled down to county level data.
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Infant care in CA now costs as much as UC tuition
California parents are hit hard in the wallet not only when their kids head out to college, but also in the first two years of their children’s lives. According to the latest data on Kidsdata, the state’s parents spent an average of $13,327 per year to send their infants to a child care center in 2014, the same year that UC tuition and fees hit $13,222 (PDF). Nationally, childcare for children below age five has also exceeded that of in-state college tuition.
When broken down by county, Bay Area counties had the highest costs of infant care, with Marin County leading the pack at more than $18,000 per year, while more rural counties in far northern California and the central valley had the lowest costs for infant child care, at less than $12,000 per year.
Center-based infant care costs in California made up an estimated 14 percent of the median annual income for married couples and 45 percent for single parents in 2014. In 2014, California was ranked the 8th least affordable state for center-based infant care in the nation.
Despite the high costs of child care relative to income, nationally, the median hourly wage for child care workers is $9.77, and nearly half of this work force receives government assistance in the form of food stamps, welfare benefits, or Medicaid.
Early childhood is a critical period for cognitive, biological, and social development. The quality of children’s environments and experiences during these years can have lasting effects. From infancy, children are learning to relate to others and their environment while developing the skills to successfully navigate social, emotional, and educational challenges. Children who attend high-quality preschools tend to have better test scores, fewer behavioral problems, and higher rates of high school graduation, among other long-term benefits.
Policies that could improve child care include improving the state’s professional development infrastructure to prepare and support an effective early care workforce, making the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit fully refundable at the state level, and encouraging other federal solutions to address the high cost of child care.
Related Data
Availability of Child Care for Potential Demand
Number of Child Care Slots in Licensed Facilities
Number of Licensed Child Care Facilities
Children Ages 3-5 Not Enrolled in Preschool or Kindergarten
Helpful Links
California Child Care Resource & Referral Network
Community Care Licensing Division (CCLD) Facility Search
Center for the Study of Child Care Employment
A Matter of Equity: Preschool in America
High Quality Child Care Is Out of Reach for Working Families
Preschool and School Readiness: Experiences of Children with Non-English-Speaking Parents
Kidsdata Tip
Come meet us this month! On October 10, Kidsdata will be conducting a free workshop in San Rafael, hosted by First 5 Marin. On October 21, Kidsdata will be introducing a new topic at the Adverse Childhood Experiences Conference in San Francisco.
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Have an idea to improve health in your community?
Our data about the social determinants of health for children help many of our users come up with innovative ideas to improve health in our communities. Be sure to check out the Innovation Challenge 2.0, which encourages community and health advocates across the state to share ideas and projects they are working on to address the factors that shape our health. Social determinants of health, such as such as air quality, family income and poverty, housing affordability, early care and education, are available for you to customize and visualize on kidsdata.org.
The deadline to submit your innovative idea is October 19, 2016.
For more information, visit the Let’s Get Healthy California website.
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Bay Area family housing sees highest rent hikes in the state
Since the end of the Great Recession, California’s Bay Area counties have seen the highest rent increases in the state. For example, in Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties, the fair market rent for studios, one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom housing units increased by more than 30 percent between 2009 and 2016, according to the latest data on Kidsdata.
Larger, family-sized housing units saw the greatest increases. In Alameda and Contra Costa counties, for example, three-bedroom housing units saw higher rent hikes than any other size unit. In Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties, four-bedroom housing units saw the highest rent hikes. In those counties, the fair market rent for a four-bedroom housing unit rose by 52 percent, from $2,339 in 2009 to $3,556 in 2016.
Stable, affordable, quality housing is linked to positive health outcomes for children. Families that spend more than half of their income on housing tend to spend much less than other families on essential items, such as food and health care. In some cases, a lack of affordable housing can result in families living in crowded households. Residential crowding may be linked to the prevalence of certain infectious diseases, poor educational attainment, and psychological distress, among other potential adverse effects.
Policy options that could improve housing affordability and promote the well being of children include preserving and increasing the availability of affordable housing, expanding housing trust funds, housing bonds, and California’s Low Income Housing Tax Credit, and reducing administrative barriers to receiving rental assistance.
Related Data
- Fair Market Rent, by Unit Size
- Households with a High Housing Cost Burden
- Children Living in Crowded Households
Family Income and Poverty Summary
Helpful Links
California Dept. of Housing and Community Development
Compounding Stress: The Timing and Duration Effects of Homelessness on Children’s Health
Housing, Neighborhoods, and Children’s Health
Kidsdata Tip
Are you a policy maker? Don’t forget that Kidsdata has a wealth of data broken down by legislative districts.
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CA Soda Taxes: Where could their impact be greatest?
Taxing soda is associated with decreased soda consumption, according to the first analysis of the impact of Berkeley, California’s 2014 soda tax. Published earlier this summer in the American Journal of Public Health, the study shows that after the tax was implemented, sugary beverage consumption fell by 21 percent in Berkeley, while water consumption rose by 63 percent.
Berkeley was the first city in the nation to levy a tax on soda. This fall, three more California cities—San Francisco, Oakland, and Albany—will consider such a tax on their November ballots. An effort to pass a statewide soda tax in California failed to gain steam earlier this year.
The latest data on children drinking sugary beverages in California are now available on Kidsdata. San Francisco and Alameda counties, home to the four cities that have passed or are considering passing soda taxes, had the lowest percentages (about one in five) of children drinking sugary beverages, among counties with data. In Yuba, Kern and Tulare counties, all in the central valley, three in five children drank at least one sugary beverage per day.
Statewide, in 2013-2014, two out of five children drank one or more sugary beverages per day. Among the youngest children, those between 2 and 11 years old, the gap between ethnic groups is large. More than half of young black children drank sugary beverages per day, compared with one-third of young Latino and Asian children and one-fifth of young white children.
Children should minimize consumption of sugary beverages, which are linked to poor health outcomes, including unhealthy weight gain and obesity. Experts suggest promoting cross-sector, comprehensive strategies to reduce consumption of sugary beverages and increasing the availability of healthy, affordable food and beverage options for children and families, particularly in low-income communities.
Related Data (by State, County & School District)
- Children Drinking One or More Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Per Day
- Children Who Ate Fast Food Two or More Times in the Past Week
- Children Who Eat Five or More Servings of Fruits/Vegetables Daily
- Students Who Ate Breakfast in Past Day
- Healthy Food Choices Provided at School
Helpful Links
BreakfastFirst, California Food Policy Advocates
CDC Healthy Schools, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Let’s Move! America’s Move to Raise a Healthier Generation of Kids
Breakfast and the Achievement Gap Among Urban Minority Youth, Journal of School Health
Majority of Young Children in California Eat Fast Food Regularly but Drink Less Soda, UCLA Center for Health Policy Research
Still Bubbling Over: California Adolescents Drinking More Soda and Other Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, UCLA Center for Health Policy Research & California Center for Public Health Advocacy
Snacks, Sweetened Beverages, Added Sugars, and Schools. American Academy of Pediatrics
Kidsdata Tip
Did you know that Kidsdata breaks down data by a number of demographic groups? The categories include age, gender, immigrant/non-immigrant, income level, race/ethnicity, and children with special health care needs.
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CA schools face acute shortage of nurses and counselors
California public schools are falling woefully short when it comes to student support personnel. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a ratio of one school nurse to 750 students. According to the most recent data available on Kidsdata, however, the state’s public schools employed one full-time nurse for 2,784 students in 2015, or nearly four times the recommended ratio. For the 52 counties with available data, none met the recommended ratio. Yuba County had the most impacted ratio by far, at one nurse for nearly 14,000 students.
The state falls behind in other support categories, too. The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of one school counselor to 250 students, yet California’s ratio was one to 792 students in 2015, or more than three times the recommended ratio. Rural counties such as Lassen, Calaveras, and Plumas had the most pronounced ratios, at one counselor for more than 1,400 students. In 2014, California ranked 49th in the US (PDF), after Arizona, in its counselor-to-student ratio.
Student support personnel address students’ social, emotional, behavioral, physical, and cognitive needs to help them reach their maximum academic and health potential. Schools that provide students with greater access to nurses and counselors are associated with more positive school climates, which generally lead to better student performance.
Policy options that could improve student access to quality support services include maximizing partnerships and existing funding streams (PDF) to ensure that students have access to school counseling and other mental health services, promoting the delivery of health care services at school by funding school nurses and school-based health centers, and integrating student mental health and health care services into a coordinated and comprehensive system of supports.
Related Data (by State, County & School District)
- Pupil Support Service Personnel
- Bullying and Harassment at School
- College Eligibility
- High School Graduation
- School Connectedness
- Truancy, Suspensions & Expulsions
Helpful Links
National Association of School Nurses
American School Counselor Association
National Association of School Psychologists
California School-Based Health Alliance
The ‘Hidden Health Care System’ in California Schools and Children with Special Health Care Needs, Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health
Kidsdata Tip
How do you use Kidsdata? Read recent examples from other users and take a minute to share your story.
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CA’s new vaccine law: which counties have yet to achieve herd immunity?
Last month, California’s new mandatory child vaccination law, SB 277, took effect. The law helps enforce the Department of Education’s requirement that all California children attending public and private schools receive a series of vaccines, unless they have a medical exemption. Inspired by the 2014 measles outbreak at Disneyland and the state’s 2010 and 2014 whooping cough outbreaks, SB 277 prohibits parents from citing personal beliefs or religion as reasons to not vaccinate their children.
To better understand how SB 277 will affect the health of children in California, Kidsdata has released the newest data available on student immunizations for the 2015-2016 school year. Depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine, and how long immunization will last, California public health officials recommend vaccination rates of between 80-94 percent in order to achieve community immunity (PDF), also known as “herd immunity.” Diseases such as polio, which is less contagious, have a lower threshold, while diseases such as measles, which is highly contagious, require a 94 percent threshold in order to protect those most at risk.
Between 2011 and 2016, the state showed a modest 2 percent rise in the percent of kindergartners who had all required immunizations, reaching 93 percent in 2016. When broken down by county, however, geographic differences become clear. At 100 percent, Sierra County led the 26 counties with immunization rates of 94 percent or higher. Three counties had rates lower than 80 percent: Tuolomne, Nevada, and Trinity.
The Gold Country counties of Sierra, Calaveras, and Mariposa each saw a rise of at least 8 percentage points since 2011, bringing them closer to recommended thresholds. On the other end of the spectrum, Amador, Modoc, and Trinity Counties (one in Gold Country, and two in California’s far north) all saw drops of at least six percentage points, moving their populations further from community immunity.
Immunizations are among the most successful and cost-effective preventive health care interventions, helping millions of children in the U.S. and internationally avoid contracting numerous serious and potentially fatal infectious diseases.
Related Data (by State, County & School District):
Immunization summary
- Kindergartners with All Required Immunizations
- Kindergartners with Immunization Exemptions
- Vaccine-Preventable Childhood Diseases, by Disease
Helpful Links
California Dept. of Public Health, Immunization Branch
California Immunization Coalition
Legislative Challenges to School Immunization Mandates: 2009-2012, JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association
Solutions to Reducing Vaccine-Preventable Childhood Diseases, Population Reference Bureau
Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Immunization Rates in Child Care and Schools, California Dept. of Public Health, Immunization Branch
Kidsdata Tip
Ever wondered who runs Kidsdata? Kidsdata is a program of the Palo Alto, CA-based Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, which promotes the health and well being of children in California.
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How safe are black children in California?
“It’s okay, I’m right here with you.” These were the soft-spoken words of four-year-old Dae’Anna Reynolds, just minutes after she and her mother had witnessed the July 6 police shooting death—while sitting in the same car—of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. The Castile case, along with the police shooting deaths of black children such as Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, are reminders of the disparate levels of violence faced by black children in this country.
To better understand how safe black children are in California, Kidsdata provides a wealth of relevant data, broken down by race. In multiple categories, black children consistently face the worst outcomes when compared to children of other ethnicities: black and multiracial infants under one year old are dying at a high rate and black children and youth over one year old are also dying at a high rate.
The disparity in infant mortality rates is largely attributed to perinatal conditions and sleep-related incidents, but for children over the age of one, additional factors include death from violence committed by parents/caregivers as well as by non-parents/caregivers.
In school, data on Kidsdata show that a high percentage of black students report being bullied because of their race, compared to students of other races; and a high percentage of black students report feeling unsafe at school, compared to students of other races.
Last month, Sacramento County announced a $26 million initiative to address its high rate of black child deaths. Working with the Steering Committee on Reduction of African American Child Deaths, the program’s goal is to organize community groups, engage policymakers, coordinate existing services, and push for data-driven accountability in order to reduce black child mortality by 10-20 percent by 2020.
Related Data:
- Child/Youth Death Rate by Race/Ethnicity
- Infant Mortality Rate by Race/Ethnicity
- Race/National Origin as Reason for Bullying/Harrassment by Race/Ethnicity
- Cyberbulling by Race/Ethnicity
- Perceptions of School Safety by Race/Ethnicity
Helpful Links
Understanding Racial and Ethnic Disparities in U.S. Infant Mortality Rates, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Black Children Die at Alarming Rate in Sacramento County, and Here’s Why, The Sacramento Bee
Steering Committee on Reduction of African American Child Deaths, Sierra Health Foundation
Racial and Ethnic Stereotypes and Bullying Victimization, Youth & Society
First Full Year of NYPD Data Shows Black Students Disproportionately Arrested at School, New York Civil Liberties Union
Kidsdata in the News
A recent Kidsdata advisory that identified high rates of pediatric cancer in Napa and Marin counties has helped lead to a special report investigating the possible causes of these high rates. The report was presented to the Napa County Board of Supervisors in June. The board is now asking for an annual report on the topic.
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