The Kids Aren’t Alright: Troubling New Findings for Colorado’s Children
By Julian Kesner, The Colorado Trust
The Colorado Health Foundation (TCHF) and the Colorado Children’s Campaign (CCC) both released their most high-profile annual studies within two days of each other earlier this week. While the reports looked at different metrics, areas of success and opportunities for change, they had one thing in common: The health and well-being of Colorado children are not at all what they should be.
The most obvious finding in the Colorado Health Report Card, published annually by TCHF in collaboration with the Colorado Health Institute, was the stark differences by age range. Perhaps counterintuitively, the health “grade” for Coloradans was best for older adults, pretty good for adults—yet decidedly middling for children. In other words, from about age 18 and up, Colorado remains a fairly healthy place to live—but if you’re a newborn or in grade school, the deck is much more likely to be stacked against you.
Nearly 18 percent of pregnant women in Colorado don’t receive prenatal care until after the first trimester, or don’t receive prenatal care at all, the report card found. Colorado’s infant mortality rate (6.2 per 1,000 live births) is still unacceptably high compared to other states. Nearly 30 percent of preschool-age children don’t get all the vaccines they need. While the health care coverage rate among kids is unquestionably on the rise (continuous Medicaid eligibility will help), Colorado is lagging in pediatric preventive dental care, and about one in three children in our state aren’t getting enough vigorous physical activity. (One metric that will be harder to change is low birth-weight; while many variables matter, altitude is one that has been repeatedly demonstrated to be a significant factor.) So while Colorado ranks eleventh to fifteenth nationwide in health status for adults and seniors, we’re stuck in the middle of the pack when it comes to kids. This is an obvious area of improvement that demands the focus and attention of policy makers.
The KIDS COUNT in Colorado! study, which was released by CCC two days before the TCHF report card, identified troubling trends in the same vein. Among the most notable findings: From 2000 to 2012, the percentage of Colorado children living in poverty went from 10 to 18 percent—that’s 224,000 kids statewide below the poverty line. Poverty rates by race/ethnicity were even more startling; while the 2012 child poverty rates remained nearly identical among whites and Hispanics compared to 2007, among blacks it rose from 28 to 41 percent during this five-year period.
There was also a third important report released this week: nationwide, county-specific health rankings, published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It was not surprising to see the health outcomes by county in Colorado (for all age groups) correlate almost exactly with the KIDS COUNT map of the percentage of children living in poverty; after all, income is one of the key social determinants of health.
The Colorado Trust’s vision is to assure that all Coloradans have fair and equal opportunities to lead healthy, productive lives regardless of race, ethnicity, income or where we live. It’s important that our age—especially being young—shouldn’t need to be added to this list.
