Just Updated on Kidsdata.org: Youth Suicide & Self-Inflicted Injury Data
All throughout May, which is Mental Health Month, kidsdata.org will be releasing data related to children’s emotional well being. This week kidsdata.org’s statewide expansion continues by adding a key measure of emotional well being – youth suicide and self-inflicted injury data for counties across California. These data are provided by the California Department of Health Services, and are broken down by age, gender and race/ethnicity.
Insights from these data include:
- From 1995-97 to 2005-07, California’s youth suicide rate declined by 27 percent.
- Males are much more likely than females to commit suicide. Among California youth ages 15-24, between 1995 and 2007, four-to-five times as many males committed suicide each year than females.
- California’s rate of hospitalizations for self-inflicted injuries among youth ages 5-20 decreased nearly every year from 2001-06.
- Over a ten-year period, from 1998-2007, nearly 4,000 (3,836) California children and youth ages 5-24 committed suicide.
View all data on youth suicide and self-inflicted injury>>
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Posted by kidsdata.org
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Kidsdata.org Partners with New Public Policy Site, HealthyCal.org
Kidsdata.org is pleased to announce a partnership with the recently launched HealthyCal.org — a site that tracks health policy at the state and community level to highlight issues affecting Californians. The site features updates on legislation, and posts on issues from key state leaders and advocates. And — full disclosure — a weekly data posting from kidsdata.org that focuses on an important issue affecting children’s health in California.
Veteran journalist Daniel Weintraub, formerly the public affairs columnist for the editorial pages of the Sacramento Bee, is editor-in-chief of HealthyCal.org, which has received initial funding from The California Endowment. Kudos to Dan for this pioneering effort in the world of healthy policy blogging — we’re glad to be a part of it. Take a look: www.healthycal.org
Posted by Felicity Simmons
Tags: Child Health Initiatives, Data Projects
At Packard Hospital Forum, Experts Detail Why Kids Need Health Reform
“Kids can’t wait” was the theme of the day at the Child Health Forum on March 25, a gathering of doctors, nurses, nonprofit staff, teachers and others to discuss the future of health care for kids in California. The event, sponsored by Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and the Children’s Health Fund, fortuitously coincided with the passage of massive health care reform legislation that Congress has been debating for more than a year.
However, the speakers emphasized that health care for kids goes far beyond simply having an insurance card. Other major factors, such as access to care, affordability, and parental health, will determine whether the health care reform efforts have a real impact on our state’s children and youth.
Ted Lempert, president of Children Now, lauded the passage of health reform efforts, but cautioned that other issues are not resolved under the new health care reform laws. He noted that a key issue for California is undocumented kids, who are not covered under reform, and asserted that it is in the financial interest of the state to cover these children through health insurance. Along with others, he cited the current shortage of pediatric specialists, another growing concern that is not fully addressed by health care reform.
From a parental point of view, Lisa Wise, mother of a young son with Crouzon Syndrome, discussed how having a chronically ill child leads some parents to shape their career decisions based on which employer has the best health insurance benefits. For parents like Lisa, health reform holds the promise of eventuallying providing more insurance options that are affordable and family friendly.
Dr. Paul Wise, the Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society at Stanford University School of Medicine, stressed the importance of taking care of parents as we focus on improving the health of kids. Children are poor because their parents are poor, he said, and insuring and nurturing mothers can lead to better health outcomes for kids. This reminds us all that as we seek to address the needs of children in California, we cannot neglect the needs of the parents who tend to these children every day.
Posted by Jordan Handcox
Tags: Child Health Initiatives
Kidsdata.org On the Road
As we strive to let people know how kidsdata.org can be valuable in their work, and to learn about how kids are faring in communities across the state, we’ll be on the road quite a bit in the coming weeks. Here’s a sampling of our planned travels. If
you’ll be in the area – stop by and say hello!
- Today we’re in Sacramento, presenting kidsdata.org to First 5 executive directors from across California.
- Tomorrow, we’ll be exhibiting at the California School Health Centers Association conference in Oakland. If you’ll be there, please do stop by our table.
- Tuesday, May 4th, we’ll be presenting kidsdata.org in Merced County – Southwest Merced/East Merced County is one of The California Endowment’s 14 Healthy Communities.
- The following Monday, May 10th, we’ll be up in Redding for a 10-county Child Abuse Prevention Council meeting; and to meet with some champions of child health in Shasta County.
- On Wednesday, May 19, kidsdata.org will be the subject of a presentation to organizations associated with Community Partners, in Los Angeles; and on May 24 we’ll be back in LA participating in the demographic conference, “What Is the Future for Children in California?”
If you don’t see your region on this list, don’t worry. We hope to be in your neighborhood soon!
Posted by Felicity Simmons
Tags: News About Kidsdata.org, Statewide Expansion
Healthy City Tool Tracks Local Census Response
We’ve talked before about the need to see every person counted in the 2010 Census, and we’ve noted California’s particular challenge to that end (10 of the 50 hardest-to-count counties are right here in our state). Today we applaud our colleagues at Healthy City for offering Census2010.HealthyCity.org. The site presents current Census participation rates, hard-to-count scores from the last Census for communities statewide, and a weekly analysis of low-response areas — key information that will inform outreach strategy as it’s happening.
Remember: Today is the last day to mail back your census form!
Posted by kidsdata.org
Tags: Data Projects
Fun with Data Mashing
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From datamasher.org, this is an example of a data mash-up of fast food restaurants and child obesity rates. |
Kidsdata.org has a wealth of data related specifically to children in California, but what if you want to compare California against other states and different indicators? You might want to try Datamasher.org, a website that allows users to get creative by comparing indicators from different states against each other. Users can view others’ mash-ups, then vote on them to help determine how useful they are.
Take, for instance, the mash-up titled Money Spent per Student and SAT Scores. This mash-up combines reading and mathematics SAT scores with expenditure per pupil at public schools. California students had an average combined SAT score of 1,015, with the state spending $7,905 per student, which puts California about the middle (29th) on the list for most SAT points per dollar spent. The worst state was New Jersey, where the average SAT was 1,005, but state spending per student was $14,117 – nearly double the expense of California. Utah ranked the best, with an average score of 1,114 and $5,216 spent per student.
When it comes to Most Reproductive States, California ranks 9th with 562,440 births divided by the state’s 2008 population of nearly 37 million. The West and Southwest has some of the most reproductive states, with Utah again ranking 1st, while the Northeast has some of the least reproductive states, with Maine ranking 50th.
Have you created a mashup on kids’ health? Add it here!
Posted by kidsdata.org
Tags: Data Projects
Positive Indicators: It’s Important to Look At Strengths, Too
Several recent publications have discussed the importance of “positive indicators.” What are positive indicators and why are they important? These indicators measure aspects of positive well being, such as the percentage of students who report that an adult at school cares about them, rather than measuring problems, such as juvenile arrests. In the last couple of decades, there has been an increasing focus on understanding how to support children’s positive development – the skills, attitudes, health, and opportunities that young people need to succeed. This is a major shift from the historical focus on understanding and reducing negative behaviors and problems.
While it is important for policymakers to continue monitoring and addressing the problems facing children, it also is critical for leaders to understand the extent to which children are developing in positive ways, so we can develop strategies to promote and sustain those benefits. This is particularly true when governments are faced with tough budget decisions.
A recent UNICEF report discussed the concern that positive indicators may not attract as much attention as negative indicators and suggested that “it is often not the tenor of the indicator, but whether the trend is good or bad, that attracts this attention.” For example, the good news about California’s declining teen birth rate and the not-so-good news about few students reporting meaningful opportunities to participate in school both are worthy of public attention. In the U.S., it certainly is true that programs and policies promoting the positive development of children and youth have received increased attention in recent years, and support seems to be growing for the notion that “problem free is not fully prepared.”
However, there also is wide agreement on the need for additional and improved measures of positive well being, particularly in the area of social and emotional health. The following reports discuss these needs in depth and offer recommendations to improve positive indicators:
Lippman, Laura, H., Kristin Anderson Moore and Hugh McIntosh (2009), “Positive Indicators of Child Well-Being: A Conceptual Framework, Measures and Methodological Issues.” Innocenti Working Paper No. 2009-21. Florence, UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre.
Dukakis, K., London, R.A., McLaughlin, M., Williamson, D. (Oct. 2009). “Positive Youth Development: Individual, Setting and System Level Indicators.” John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities.
Posted by JoAnna Caywood
Tags: Data Challenges
Just Updated on Kidsdata.org: Juvenile Felony Arrest Rates
The kidsdata.org statewide expansion continues with new data for juvenile felony arrest rates and total felony arrests for all counties in California. These data are provided by the California Department of Justice, and are further broken down by age, gender, race and type of offense. Insights from these data include:
- California’s juvenile felony arrests have declined over the last 10 years, to 14 per 1,000 youth ages 10-17 in 2008.
- CA juvenile males are at least 4 times more likely than females to be arrested for a felony.
- African American juveniles are arrested at higher rates than their peers in other ethnic groups.
- Property offenses are the most frequent felony offense for CA youth, at about 40% of all offenses. Sex offenses were the lowest, at 2%.
View all data on juvenile arrests>>
Sign up to receive an e-mail alert when these data are updated>>
Posted by kidsdata.org
Tags: New Data, Statewide Expansion
National Awareness Campaigns for Kids in April
Following is a rundown of some important children’s health observances that take place this month, along with links to related data from kidsdata.org:
National Autism Awareness Month
- 8% of public school students enrolled in special education in California are diagnosed with autism.
- The number of special education students that were diagnosed with autism in California more than tripled from 2001 to 2009.
See our foundation’s May 2008 issue brief on autism diagnoses for more on this topic.
- According to data from the 2006-’08 California Healthy Kids Survey, more than 40% of 7th grade girls in California said they have ridden in a car driven by someone who had been drinking
- In this same survey, 29% of 11th-grade California boys, and 27% of 11th-grade girls, said they drink alcohol either “enough to feel it a lot” or “until I get really drunk.”
See all measures of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use on kidsdata.org.
National Child Abuse Prevention Month/Month of the Young Child
- Substantiated cases of child abuse in California declined from 1998 to 2008.
- Neglect is the most common type of child abuse, representing nearly 50% of substantiated cases of child abuse in California.
See all child abuse data on kidsdata.org.
National Minority Health Awareness Month
Health-related data on kidsdata.org are available for a number of racial/ethnic groups in California, including:
- African American
- Asian/Asian American
- Filipino
- Latino/Hispanic
- Native American/American Indian
- Pacific Islander
Posted by Andy Krackov
Tags: Health Observances
How Can We Better Measure California’s Child Diversity?
A few weeks ago in LA, my colleague, Felicity Ayles, and I held a discussion with ethnic media about children’s data issues (video). In February, I participated in a similar session in Fresno (video). Both events were sponsored by New America Media.
The key question on ethnic journalists’ minds? How are kids of different racial/ethnic groups faring locally?
Unfortunately, our answers often were necessarily incomplete. As diverse as California’s child population is, we actually don’t have tools even to easily measure that diversity at a local level, let alone determine the status of how some groups are doing on wide-ranging measures. That’s because state and federal data sources often don’t report local data at the needed level of specificity.
California’s Department of Finance, for example, breaks out the statewide child population this way: Hispanic/Latino (49.3%), Caucasian/White (30.6%), African American/Black (5.8%), Native American (0.5%), Multiracial (3.7%), then one overall basket for Asian/Pacific Islander (10.2%). The state’s Department of Education is a bit more specific, breaking out Pacific Islander (0.6%) and Filipino students (2.7%) separately from Asian Americans (8.4%) in state and local public school enrollment figures.
But what about the Hmong population in Fresno? Or the Arab-American population in Southern California? Or the important breakdowns within the Hispanic/Latino community? The short answer is that we can’t pinpoint demographic trends locally, or sometimes statewide, for these and other groups.
As Steve Thao of the Hmong Tribune in Fresno points out in the video noted above, “The Asian-American community is very diverse and very splintered – different languages, different history, different cultures – and I think that’s something that kidsdata.org has to address.”
We agree. We crave better racial/ethnic breakdowns – not just for demographic data but for the hundreds of indicators on kidsdata.org that measure the status of child well-being, from prenatal care to poverty to child abuse – all of which are offered by race/ethnicity, but not by very fine breakdowns. Addressing this issue is clearly a multi-year endeavor that will require coordination with state and federal agencies. But we can start. At kidsdata.org, we’ll investigate whether more specific breakdowns are available from our data sources. And if you know of local or statewide efforts to provide better racial/ethnic data for children, please let us know by posting a comment below.
At the very least, we can catalog what’s going on in California to provide more distinct racial/ethnic groupings. From that, we all may learn how we can better measure California’s diversity.
Posted by Andy Krackov
Tags: Child Diversity, Kidsdata.org In The News