We’re excited to partner with Fostering Media Connections (FMC), a media and advocacy group that focuses on the needs of children and youth in foster care.

FMC’s new online publication, The Chronicle of Social Change, has added a new biweekly feature highlighting data about California’s children from kidsdata.org. For example, a recent feature spotlighted California’s 27% decline in the rate of substantiated child abuse or neglect cases between 2002 and 2012.

The Chronicle of Social Change covers juvenile justice, child welfare and other fields related to youth and families.

For more information about children in California’s foster care and child welfare systems, check out these kidsdata.org indicators:

First Entries into Foster Care
by Age
by Race/Ethnicity
by Reason for Removal
by Type of Placement

Number of Children in Foster Care
by Age
by Race/Ethnicity
by Type of Placement

Length of Time from Foster Care to Adoption

Median Number of Months in Foster Care

Placement Distances from Home

Placement Stability, by Number of Placements

Re-entries into Foster Care

Exit Status After One Year in Foster Care

Exit Status After Four Years in Foster Care

Child Abuse and Neglect Reports
by Age
by Race/Ethnicity
by Type of Abuse

Substantiated Cases of Child Abuse and Neglect
by Age
by Race/Ethnicity
by Type of Abuse

Posted by Barbara Feder Ostrov

As we mark Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, it’s important to remember that cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease for children under the age of 15, even as medical advances have improved cancer treatment.

It’s estimated that more than 1,100 children ages 0-14 are diagnosed with cancer each year in California. Youth ages 15-19 generally have higher rates of cancer diagnoses than children up to 14.

White children tend to have the highest rate of cancer diagnoses among all ethnic groups with available data, but they also have higher survival rates than African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Latino children once diagnosed.

Fortunately, most children diagnosed with cancer survive into adulthood. In particular, rates of survival for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common childhood cancer, improved between 1990 and 2005.

For more information about cancer in California children, see these measures on kidsdata.org:

Childhood Cancer Diagnoses

• by Age

• by Race/Ethnicity and Age

• by Type of Cancer and Age

Net Five-Year Cancer Survival Rate, by Type of Cancer

• by Race/Ethnicity

Posted by Amy Lam

Children breathe more air per pound of body weight than adults.

That’s just one of the eye-opening facts in a new Riverside Press-Enterprise series on air pollution and its effects on health in Southern California’s heavily industrialized Inland Empire.

This in-depth series of articles, photos, videos and interactive graphics was supported by a grant from the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health Journalism Fund, awarded by The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism.

In the series, reporter David Danelski examines how the region’s air pollution, among the nation’s worst, harms children’s health and development:

The science documenting the harm of air pollution is vast.
It’s not just lungs that are affected. Like a Trojan horse, pollution carried inside the body in the simple, constant and necessary act of breathing is penetrating natural defenses and triggering an array of consequences.
In children, pollution can sabotage the biochemistry vital to the development of growing organs. In the womb, pollution is a suspected factor in miscarriage, birth defects and autism. And in a child’s formative years, breathing difficulties can develop and other diseases may take root in the brain and elsewhere.
Learning deficits have been found in children living in polluted areas. And new research finds that pregnant women exposed to certain pollution are more likely to have children who become obese, a condition with its own disease complications.

Children hurt by air pollution can face chronic illnesses, such as asthma, and a shorter lifespan than their own genes might have predicted.

For more information on air quality in your California county, check out these kidsdata.org indicators:

Air Quality: Days with Ozone Levels Above Regulatory Standard

Air Quality: Annual Average Particulate Matter Concentration

Related:
Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health Journalism Fund: Reporting on How The Affordable Care Act Affects California Children with Special Health Care Needs

PHOTO: Credit: Stan Lim, Riverside Press-Enterprise

Posted by Barbara Feder Ostrov

A troubling side of going back to school is reflected in a recent San Jose Mercury News story that highlighted bullying and school safety data from kidsdata.org.

The story noted that nearly 40% of surveyed seventh-graders in Santa Clara County and nearly half in San Mateo County said they had been bullied in the past 12 months at school. Nearly 6% of seventh-graders in Santa Clara County said they belong to a gang.

But there are also positive developments as California kids head back to school this month: Low-income kids are making greater strides in math and reading proficiency in recent years. Here’s how they’re doing on 3rd grade reading tests and the High School Exit Exam math test. In addition, a greater percentage of high school students are completing college prep classes.

Check out more school-related indicators of children’s health and well being:
School Health Centers

Kindergarteners with All Required Immunizations

Students Who Are at a Healthy Weight or Underweight, by Grade Level

School Safety

Bullying and Harassment at School

English Learners

College Eligibility

High School Dropouts

Math Proficiency

Reading Proficiency

Pupil Support Service Personnel (nurses, counselors, and others)

Truancy, Suspensions & Expulsions

Student Eligibility to Receive Free or Reduced Price School Meals

Homeless Public School Students (California Only)

Posted by Barbara Feder Ostrov

Research has long shown that children exposed to lead in the environment are more likely to display impulsive behavior, short attention spans and lower intelligence than non-exposed kids.

Now, a new study on lead poisoning shows that children with even moderate levels of lead exposure by age 3 are suspended from school by the time they reach age 10 far more often than their peers with lower blood-lead levels.

The researchers studied children whose blood-lead levels were between 10 and 20 micrograms and compared them with children whose levels were below 5. Most research has focused on children with levels above 20 micrograms, considered acute lead poisoning.

Lead contamination has declined as a children’s health problem in California and nationwide. But public health officials remain concerned because federal funding for state and local lead poisoning prevention was virtually eliminated in 2012, even as the CDC lowered the threshold at which children under 6 are considered at risk for lead poisoning. A recent report (PDF) from the National Center for Healthy Housing outlines the consequences of the federal funding cuts.

In California, nearly 2,300 children were found to have elevated blood lead levels in 2010. Want to know more about your county? Click here.

Related:

Children/Youth with Elevated Blood Lead Levels, by Age
Kidsdata.org

State and Local Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Programs: The Impact of Federal Public Health Funding Cuts (PDF)
National Center for Healthy Housing, July 2013

Lead Poisoning’s Impact: Kids Suspended More At School
USA Today, 8/14/13

Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch
California Department of Public Health

Posted by Barbara Feder Ostrov

August is National Immunization Awareness Month. As the school year approaches, it’s a good reminder that vaccines are one of the best ways to keep kids healthy.

August has been named “National Immunization Awareness Month” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to remind families to take advantage of one of the most successful and cost-effective preventive health care interventions for children.

In California, about 91% of kindergarteners have all of the required immunizations, just shy of the CDC target of 95%. County percentages range between 71.6% and 98.3%, according to the latest estimates from 2011. Schools in California require proof of recommended immunizations as a condition of entry into kindergarten and licensed child care, which means that a majority of kids are vaccinated by the time they start school. However, vaccination rates are much lower for infants and toddlers, who are especially vulnerable to communicable diseases.

The CDC notes that many teenagers are missing out on key vaccines. Only about 50% of teenage girls in the U.S. have received one of three Human Papillomavirus (HPV) shots, and less than a third received the full three-shot series. This vaccine protects against four strains of HPV, one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the country, which account for 70% of all cervical cancer as well as 90% of genital warts.

Although vaccination rates in the United States are relatively high, some families opt out because of religious or ethical beliefs, or due to concerns about vaccine safety or effectiveness. Research shows that communities with unvaccinated and under-vaccinated populations are at higher risk for outbreaks of preventable diseases, such as measles and whooping cough. The CDC urges citizens of all ages to keep up to date with the appropriate vaccinations.

Useful Links

• Immunization Data – California
• CDC: Vaccines & Immunizations
• CDC: National Immunization Awareness Month

Posted by Amy Lam

Kidsdata.org is honored to be named one of the Health Data Consortium’s All-Stars!

The Health Data Consortium is a nonprofit collaborative of government, non-profit, and for-profit organizations that works to make data more available to the public to improve American health care.

The folks at Health Data Consortium liked how easy kidsdata.org is to use and how indicators can be visualized in different ways. Kidsdata.org was created by the nonpartisan Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health to promote the health and well being of California’s kids. Data are available for every city, county, and school district in California, organized by topic, region and demographic group. Leaders working on behalf of children use kidsdata.org to assess community needs, set priorities, track progress, make program and policy decisions, and identify challenges still to be met.

In the spirit of sharing, here are some other child data All-Stars named by the Health Data Consortium:

Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health
The Data Resource Center provides free data sets for the National Surveys of Children’s Health and National Surveys of Children with Special Health Care Needs. They provide national and state-level data on child health factors and indicators from these surveys so that the public can stay well-informed about issues prevalent in child health.

Kids Count
Kids Count uses data supplied by the Annie E. Casey Foundation to offer hundreds of measures of children well-being from education to demographics to health factors. You have to option of searching for data by state or by topic.  Information is organized in rankings, charts, maps, and line graphs and is easily customizable by years, race, and data type. Its user-friendly interface makes it very easy to use, and the range in topics Kinds Count covers is immense.

Child Trends
Child Trends Databank allows you to see their research on various topics such as child welfare, education, indicators, and parenting. They track and analyze trends, identify evidence-based programs and services, and providing data-driven guidance on policies and practices regarding children. Their goal is to help public policy makers see what programs do and don’t work to enhance children’s development.

Posted by Amy Lam

Once upon a time, health care for children was provided by a physician in a medical office at a scheduled time, and the cost of the services was not discussed with the doctor. Today, a family may drop in without an appointment to a clinic located in a shopping center, and scan a price list posted on the wall before deciding on a service.

In a new editorial in JAMA Pediatrics, Dr. Edward Schor, senior vice president at the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, argues that traditional pediatric practices would do well to learn from these retail-based clinics, which have burgeoned over the past decade and are being used by many families for much of routine pediatric care.

While research on the quality of care provided at these clinics is scarce, Schor notes that they have adopted standardized, protocol-based practices for high-quality minor illnesses, and they avoid seeing children under 18 months, whose care may be more complex.

If practices are to compete with this new model, Schor suggests, they should consider expanded office hours and after-hours care; same-day and walk-in appointments; co-location of frequently used services; and reassignment of staff to maximize each person’s contribution, among other enhancements.

Schor also writes that practices must improve the overall care experience for busy families and provide consumer-friendly information about pricing. Parents are increasingly concerned with quality, convenience and cost, he notes, and pediatric practices that address these issues will have the best chances of success in the changing landscape of care.

To see an abstract of the article, please click here.

RELATED CONTENT:

Medical Home: What’s in a Name?

Toward a “Triple Aim Medical Home” for Children with Special Health Care Needs

Aiming for Change: Achieving Triple Aim Goals in Pediatricians’ Practices

Kids With Pediatricians Also Getting Care at Clinics, Reuters, 7-22-13

Retail Health Clinics More Popular on Ease for Parents, Bloomberg News, 7-22-13

Posted by kidsdata.org

In California and nationwide, the declining number of children in foster care has been hailed as a child welfare success story, but racial and ethnic inequities and other challenges persist.

In 2012, 55,218 children in California were in foster care, a 49% decline since 1998.

Child welfare experts suggest that these changes are due in part to foster care policy shifts that have sped up adoptions and improved services to families to avoid having to remove children from their homes.

Take a look behind the numbers in this slideshow.

Posted by kidsdata.org

As we mark National Safety Month in June, it’s a good time to remember that unintentional injuries, such as motor accidents and trips and falls, are the leading cause of death for children ages 1-19. One in five deaths is due to intentional injuries.

While hospitalizations for injuries among children and youth under age 20 declined by 33% from 1993 to 2010 in California, the state’s rates are still above those of the nation; more than 30,000 children had non-fatal injuries serious enough to require a hospital stay in 2010.

However, with careful planning and precaution, many accidental injuries easily can be prevented. Seatbelt and child seat laws have helped dramatically decrease child injuries and deaths from motor vehicle accidents. Precautions also can be taken to prevent unintentional injury from slipping, tripping, and falling, such as installing gates at the top and bottom of stairs.

To learn more about child injuries, check out these links from kidsdata.org and check back for updated child injury statistics coming soon:

• Injury Hospitalizations
  • by Age and Cause
• Intentional Injury Hospitalizations, by Age
• Unintentional Injury Hospitalizations, by Age

More resources:

National Safety Month, National Safety Council

National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Child Safety and Injury Prevention Resource Brief, Maternal and Child Health Library at Georgetown University

Photo credit: Lindsay Shaver via Flickr

Posted by Amy Lam