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
Is Your Kid Eating Pizza for Breakfast?
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This photo from the New York Times notes the new series Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, which addresses nutrition in school lunches. |
If you watched ABC a few Sundays ago, you may have seen the premiere of a new show titled Jamie
Oliver’s Food Revolution. The show follows Jamie Oliver, a British chef known the world over for his healthful cooking, and more notably, for transforming the school lunch program in England into a healthful and budget-conscious success.
His new American reality show took him to Huntington, West Virginia, which, according to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, earned it the moniker by the Associated Press as “Unhealthiest City in America” for 2008. Having no shortage of ambition, Oliver decided to observe and attempt to improve the city’s school lunch program, which served pizza for breakfast each day.
Seeing the state of a school lunch program in the unhealthiest city in America – where more than half of the adult population is considered obese – makes every parent think about what their children eat – and maybe, too, how there own community is faring regarding kids’ weight.
While California cities can’t claim to be the unhealthiest in America, there are disparities with the healthy weight of California children. For example, a smaller percentage of Latino and Pacific Islander children are at a healthy weight compared to their peers in other racial/ethnic groups. Get our most recent data on California students with healthy weight to see how kids in your community compare.
Posted by kidsdata.org
Tags: Child Health Initiatives
Finding Local Data on Substance Use Now Is Easier than Ever
In addition to the compelling drinking and driving data noted in the post below, numerous other substance use indicators also were added to kidsdata.org recently. These data also originated from the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS), which was developed and is administered by WestEd for the California Department of Education. Below are a few highlights for the state of California for the 2006-2008 reporting period. See all topics to view these student self-report data for your county or school district.
- 24% of 11th-grade boys and 21% of 11th-grade girls reported binge drinking in the past month before they took the survey.
- More than one-third of 11th-graders in the state report smoking marijuana at least once
- More than one in eight 11th-graders smoked cigarettes at least once in the past month before taking the survey.
- California students in 7th, 9th, and 11th grades are more likely to use alcohol than tobacco or other drugs.
- Students who report feeling less connected to their schools report higher levels of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use.
For school districts and counties across California, these data are broken down by grade, gender, and students’ feelings of connectedness to their school, making CHKS an essential tool to researchers, policy makers, and those who work directly with kids in assessing how California’s adolescents are faring.
To be notified when these or any other data on kidsdata.org are updated, sign up for e-mail alerts.
Posted by Felicity Simmons
Tags: New Data, Statewide Expansion
How Prevalent Is Drinking and Driving Among Kids in CA? Local Data Provide Clues
Kidsdata.org just added 27 new indicators related to alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. They all come from the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS), through a partnership with WestEd, which developed and administers CHKS for the California Department of Education.
This set of data includes 7th-grade students’ reports of riding in a car with a driver who had been drinking, and reports by 9th and 11th graders of drinking and driving or riding in a car driven by a friend who had been drinking. Here are some state-level findings for 2006-08:
- More than 40% of 7th graders said that they’d ridden in a car with a driver who had been drinking.
- Among 11th graders, girls were slightly more likely than boys to say that they had driven after drinking, or ridden in a car driven by a friend who had been drinking.
- Students with low levels of connection to school were most likely to say they had driven after drinking or ridden with a drinking driver – 14% said they had done so 7 times or more, compared to 6% of students with high levels of connectedness. (School connectedness is a summary measure that includes being treated fairly, feeling close to people, feeling happy, feeling part of school, and feeling safe at school.)
- Asian American students were most likely to report that they had never ridden in a car with a drinking driver or driven after drinking.
Find data for your county or school district:
Reports of Drinking and Driving or Riding with a Driver Who Had Been Drinking, by Grade and Gender
By Level of Connectedness to School
Posted by Sarah Marxer
Tags: New Data, Statewide Expansion