A society’s investment decisions reveal much about its priorities. On Oct. 8, the Governor signed the 2010-11 budget for California. As a Foundation that uses data to elevate the priority of children’s health in California, we should note that the new budget illustrates the value our society places on programs that serve children. The Governor made nearly $1 billion in line-item cuts, including key child care, special education, and welfare programs. On the other hand, the 2010-11 budget also increases spending on K-12 education, community colleges, and UC education over last year. The California Budget Project provides an analysis of the key provisions in the budget agreement.

Key provisions:

• A $256 million reduction that ends CalWORKS Stage 3 child care, effective Nov. 1
• Child Welfare Services program funding cut by $80 million
• $43.8 billion in K-12 education, a slight increase over the last fiscal year
• $133 million cut from mental health services for special education students

For the full analysis, visit http://www.cbp.org/pdfs/2010/100618_Budget_Comparision.pdf or see a recent article about the 2010-11 budget agreement at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/09/MNBR1FQDB7.DTL.

Posted by Jordan Handcox

A recent study from Stanford University points out a troubling trend: Factors other than medical need appear to be influencing whether California children with chronic conditions are treated in hospitals with special expertise in caring for children.

On the positive side, the study provides evidence that the majority of chronically ill children who require hospitalization are admitted to these specialty care centers.  More disturbing is the fact that the data suggest that factors other than medical need play a major role in influencing where children are hospitalized. Low-income children with public insurance generally are cared for in a children’s specialty care hospital. Surprisingly, though, children who are privately insured are significantly less likely to be treated at these pediatric centers of excellence.

In addition, other non-medical factors such as age, ethnicity, income level and living close to a specialty care hospital also influence where a child is treated, the study reports.

These findings are worrisome because a range of studies suggest that outcomes improve when children with serious or rare conditions have access to physicians and hospitals with special expertise.

The Stanford study analyzed pediatric hospitalizations for children ages 0 to 18 years at the time of admission in California between 1999 and 2007, using data from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD).

The authors recommend greater scrutiny of clinical practices and child health policies that shape patterns of hospitalization of children with serious chronic disease. Through our work regarding children with special health care needs, our Foundation is advocating for a system in which all children are able to receive the highest-quality health care when and where they need it.

Posted by David Alexander, MD

Last week, San Francisco was home to the Fall 2010 Health 2.0 Conference, which showcases cutting-edge technologies in health care.

Headlining this fall’s event were a session and luncheon honoring the winners of the federal Health and Human Services Department’s Health 2.0 Developer Challenge. The project challenged organizations nationwide to develop applications to support the Community Health Data Initiative (CHDI). The CHDI is an HHS program aimed at helping Americans understand health issues locally, and take action to improve health in their communities.

The winners are shining examples of the power of data and how, if data are made accessible, they can change lives.

The challenge winners included:

• County Health Rankings, a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin, that ranks health indicators for all counties in all states. Developers were challenged with creating apps or widgets that would make that information easily accessible on the technological platforms (iPads, smart phones, etc) that people already use to make informed decisions.
  The winning app was developed by Acys Healthcare and displays health rankings based on the GPS location of the user, and the county they are in.

• Catch and Hope Labs challenged developers to develop an app that encourages users to get up and moving, and then tracks that movement. Winner Happy Feet from Stanford University proposed an app that allows users to track activities and earn achievements, as well as be social via Facebook to see how friends using the app are doing.

In addition to these ingenious ideas, there were four other winners.

Posted by Felicity Simmons

Today is National Child Health Day!

Here at kidsdata.org and the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, we tip our hats to organizations nationwide that are working to improve the mental, emotional, behavioral, and physical health of children.

Here are some facts about kids in California that you might be interested to know:

• There are nearly 10 million children in California.
• Of those, 14.5% have special health care needs, according to 2007 data.
• Mental health problems accounted for nearly as many hospitalizations of kids 0-17 as asthma in 2007.
• In 2008, 18.5% of California children lived in poverty.
• California’s youth suicide rate in ’05-’07 was one-third lower than it was 10 years earlier.

If you’re interested in learning more about children’s health at the national level, the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative offers a useful web resource for nationwide data.

Does your organization work on behalf of kids? Tell us how!

Posted by Felicity Simmons

Governor Schwarzenegger signed many bills into law this past week before the Sept. 30 constitutional deadline, including several bills affecting children’s health and well being in California. A few highlights:

• SB 1381: Kindergarten: Age of Admission. This bill, introduced by Senators Simitian and Steinberg, will require kids to be 5 years old when they begin kindergarten http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=18454

• AB 12: California Fostering Connections to Success Act. This bill, introduced by Assembly Members Beall and Bass, extends benefits to foster care children up to age 21 http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2010/09/governor-signs-bill-to-extend.html

• AB 2244: Health Care Coverage. This bill, introduced by Assembly Member Feuer, prohibits insurers from denying coverage to children because of pre-existing conditions by implementing federal health care law http://californianewswire.com/2010/10/01/CNW8045_204133.php

Posted by Jordan Handcox

For those of us who live in California’s urban centers, it can be easy to forget that our state, in some ways, can be characterized as rural. About one-third of California’s counties have a child population of fewer than 10,000 kids each. In some of these counties, like Inyo and Alpine, the overall population density is roughly 1 person per square mile, compared to Orange County, where the density is 3,815 people per square mile.

It stands to reason that the data needs for California’s rural regions are different than in our suburban and urban cores. A few weeks ago, I traveled to Calaveras County and heard from folks there and in nearby Tuolumne, Amador, and Alpine counties about how kidsdata.org can meet their data needs. As one person noted, they know their counties without needing data to tell them what’s going on. Still, they made clear how critical it is for them to be able to accurately measure child well being – in part, to tell others what’s going on locally.

They suggested some great ideas – offering the capacity for users to create their own customized regions of data; ensuring we offer numbers in addition to rates/percentages for as many indicators as possible; and, when viewing data, creating the ability to sort, or separate out, California’s rural counties from other counties.

We’ll consider all of those ideas, as well as others that we heard in a trip up to Shasta County a few months ago. But we want to open up this discussion to others, too. If you have insights about how kidsdata.org can serve the unique needs of rural California, we’d love to know. Just enter a comment below, or on our Facebook page.

Posted by Andy Krackov

We just added a help page to kidsdata.org, including a brand-new kidsdata.org tutorial. If you can’t find the data you’re looking for, or want to learn more about the features available on kidsdata, we recommend a visit to that page.

The tutorial is a brief video that gives a tour of the site, pointing out some of the most useful features.

Still can’t find what you’re looking for after taking the tour? Ask a question on our Data Points page, or contact us — we want to help!

Posted by Felicity Simmons