“What’s the answer to global competitiveness, better health and education outcomes, and less crime and poverty?” asked Professor James Heckman, Nobel Laureate of economics, at a lecture at CSU Monterey Bay last week that pertained directly to California’s 3.3 million children ages 0-5. As an answer, Professor Heckman focused on investment in early childhood and its long-term importance in improving America’s struggling economy. The talk, hosted by First 5 Monterey County, was streamed live by First 5s across the state and highlighted evidence that support the development and funding of programs for early childhood (from birth to 5 years old).

Professor Heckman emphasized character skills as essential to a child’s long term success in life. Cognitive skills and measures, such as IQ, are all too often regarded as the ultimate determining factor of how successful, both academically and professionally, a child will be later in life, he said. However, Professor Heckman encouraged a broader focus, encompassing both character skills, such as self-esteem and motivation, as well as cognitive skills to foster success.

The essential role that family and parents have in influencing a child’s level of performance also was highlighted by Professor Heckman. He noted that since a child spends the most time with his/her parents in the first years of life, they have the most influence on the child’s development. Heckman championed child participation in substantive preschool programs, supplemented with attention at home. Skills gained early in this manner will set a foundation for the development of additional skills later in life, he said.

Ultimately, Professor Heckman urged his audience to consider early childhood investment as a form of prevention of economic decline, rather than a remediation. By building an intelligent and capable population, the country will benefit long-term from these early investments, he said.

Kidsdata.org offers numerous data specific to children 0-5. See demographic highlights of infants and early childhood in California.

Posted by Stacey Angeles

We all might assume that the world’s urban population has grown considerably in recent decades. Now, UNICEF has provided some visual documentation of this trend, in the form of a data map that displays country-level population shifts from 1950 to 2050. The map shows that in the United States, the urban population in 2010 was roughly 255 million people (the urban population was 82% of the total population) and will be home to 365 million urbanites in 2050 (90% of the total population). In 1950, the United States was 64% urban. Other nations contain urban populations that are growing at a similarly rapid pace.

According to data about children living in rural and urban areas in California, 92% of children in California live in urban regions compared to 8% that live in rural areas.

Posted by Stacey Angeles

The good news in the 2011 math proficiency data just published on kidsdata.org is that the majority of California 10th graders are passing the math portion of the high school exit exam. Additionally, passing rates have improved in recent years, from 74% in 2004 to 83% in 2011.

Despite these statewide gains, disparities persist. Passing percentages for economically disadvantaged students – that is, students enrolled in the Free or Reduced Price Meals Program — continue to lag behind those of their non-economically disadvantaged peers (76% vs. 91% in 2011).

And while the percent of 10th graders passing this math exam has improved for all racial/ethnic groups with available data from 2004 to 2011, there are notable differences among these groups, as the accompanying graph shows.

Posted by kidsdata.org

An Annie E. Casey Foundation analysis released last week shows that the percentage of children in California living in poor neighborhoods has decreased since 2000, despite the national increase in poverty levels. According to the breakdown in the analysis, the percent of California children living in neighborhoods where 30% or more residents live below the poverty threshold decreased by 9% from 2000 to 2010. In 2010, 11% of children statewide lived in neighborhoods where 30% or more of residents are in poverty. Figures vary widely by county, ranging from 37% of children living in such poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Fresno County to just 1.4% in Marin County.

See related coverage in CaliforniaWatch.org.

Related to this issue, an intriguing data map from USA Today helps document the increase in poverty levels nationwide. In particular, the map selection for poverty rates above 20% shows a noticeable increase in the rate as you wipe across the map from 1980 to 2010 data.

To help humanize the issue of family poverty, a PBS piece, Portraits of Hunger: Stories of Americans on Food Stamps, features the stories of several families who have found themselves in poverty and participate in the food stamp program.

Find data for your community about family income and poverty>>

Posted by kidsdata.org

It’s encouraging to see that two major cities in California are turning to data to help solve civic problems.

The city of San Diego recently announced a $50,000 app challenge to “enhance city services and quality of life for San Diegans.” Data from kidsdata.org are among the many official data sources from which users can draw data for this challenge. Community members already have suggested ideas for apps that would map neighborhood air quality; provide nutritional information for local restaurants; assist in enrolling children in school; and list school testing results.

In San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee last week announced a 2012 Innovation Portfolio that, among other initiatives, will provide coders with access to city data. Roughly 60 apps already have been built with data from San Francisco, and the city will look to legislation to make datasets more accessible to the public.

Our foundation, too, has participated in a data challenge. See this blog post, “Developers Find Intriguing Ways to Display Data from Kidsdata.org,” for information on the results, which were announced last June.

Posted by Andy Krackov

February is National Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, a health observance to promote awareness about youth relationship violence and programs that are effective in preventing it.

Teen dating violence has negative effects on a young person’s physical, emotional, social, and academic well being. A recent opinion piece in The Bay Citizen highlighted the devastating repercussions of teen dating violence through the discussion of a tragic 2011 case in San Leandro that ended fatally for both teens in an abusive relationship.

Around 7% of 11^th graders in CA public schools in 2006-2008 reported experiencing dating violence (i.e., having been hit, slapped, punched, or otherwise hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend)  within the previous year.

See data about dating violence in your community >>

Posted by Stacey Angeles

“Changing the odds for children” was the theme that brought together an assortment of health and education professionals, advocates, and government officials to Kids in Common’s 2012 Santa Clara County Children’s Summit on January 27. The event, sponsored in part by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, offered eight workshops that addressed issues such as school safety (see related data) and chronic absence from elementary schools. Improving the quality of and access to education, a prominent message throughout the day, was championed by keynote speaker Joanne Weiss, chief of staff to the U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.

One workshop, led by Fernando Mendoza, MD, service chief of General Pediatrics at Packard Hospital, focused on health disparities, and highlighted education as a pathway to success for children of immigrant families. During the workshop, Mendoza noted the importance of embracing multiple dialects in the classroom, as well as the connection between the quality of education and access to quality health care.
See data about immigrant children in Santa Clara County>>

To see more data about children in Santa Clara county, visit the Santa Clara County profile on Kidsdata.org.

Posted by kidsdata.org

This guest post was written by Jeff Good, PharmD, MPH, President of the California Immunization Coalition.

In 2011, a new school immunization mandate went into effect in California, requiring adolescents to provide proof that they have received a tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine to attend school. The new mandate increased Tdap vaccination rates and put a spotlight on the important role that immunizations play in keeping adolescents healthy. It also called attention to the fact that adolescent immunization rates in California remain low, leaving hundreds of thousands of adolescents vulnerable to diseases that can be serious, including pertussis, meningococcal disease, and human papillomavirus-related cancers.

Immunization coverage levels in California fell far below the national Healthy People 2020 target of 80%. In 2010, only 67% of California’s adolescents had received a dose of meningococcal vaccine; 71% had received a Tdap vaccine; and only 32% of females had received the 3 doses of HPV4 vaccine recommended to protect against genital warts, cervical cancer, and other cancers (Figure1).

The recognition that adolescent immunization rates are low has invigorated the efforts of health, adolescent, and immunization stakeholders to increase awareness about adolescent immunizations, improve office-based immunization systems, and link families with low-cost and no-cost vaccinations.  Join the California Immunization Coalition and its partners in celebrating Preteen Vaccine Week (February 12-18, 2012).  This campaign is an opportune time to increase immunization awareness and test new strategies to:

• encourage parents and providers to schedule a comprehensive preventive visit for all preteens at 11-12 years of age to provide recommended immunizations and discuss other preventive health recommendations
• encourage providers to use proven systems to bring adolescents into the office and reduce missed opportunities to vaccinate
• educate parents and teens about the importance of immunizations and the risks of skipping or delaying immunizations
• raise awareness about two new laws impacting adolescent immunizations and
• link families with resources that provide no-cost and low-cost immunizations.

To learn more about adolescent immunizations, school immunization requirements, and Preteen Vaccine Week, please review our issue brief and visit www.immunizeca.org and www.shotsforschool.org.

Posted by kidsdata.org

Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week runs from Tuesday, February 7 to February 14. Congenital Heart Defects are the most common birth defects, affecting nearly 1% of American newborns and an estimated 1.8 million American families. Unfortunately, they also are one of the most dangerous; Congenital Heart Defects are one of the leading causes of infant death in the United States.

California data show that the leading cause of infant mortality in 2007-09 was congenital malformations and abnormalities (which include congenital heart defects) at a rate of 1.3 deaths per 1,000 live births.

To learn more about Congenital Heart Disease, visit the Congenital Heart Information Network website.

Posted by kidsdata.org

Recent analyses of long-term studies show that the educational achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed over the past 60 years, but the gap between rich and poor students has widened substantially over time.

The studies, highlighted in today’s New York Times, discuss possible reasons for the large gap in academic performance between socioeconomic groups. One possible explanation is that higher-income parents have the means to invest more in children’s extracurricular activities, such as musical instrument lessons and academic tutoring, which can contribute to increased educational success.

Kidsdata.org offers a number of education-related indicators including reading proficiency, by socioeconomic status.

See this study cited in the article: The Widening Academic Achievement Gap between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations, by the Center for Education Policy Awareness at Stanford University>>

Posted by Stacey Angeles