Report Finds Big Disparities in Well-Being of U.S. Kids

WEDNESDAY, April 2 (HealthDay News) -- For American children, where they are born and raised plays a major role in their chances of getting and staying healthy and living to adulthood, a new report finds.

The report,Geography Matters: Child Well-Being in the States, from the Every Child Matters Education Fund, ranks each state according to how well they take care of their children.

"There exists a huge gap between states on a wide variety of child well-being indicators, especially between the bottom states and the best states," Michael R. Petit, founder of Every Child Matters and author of the report, said during a Wednesday teleconference.

"The state American children live in should not adversely affect life chances, but they do," Petit said. "How is it that a poor child in Vermont lives in a completely different world from a similarly impoverished child in Louisiana? It should no longer be politically acceptable to permit or simply ignore the vast differences in life chances that exist for children."

Almost 13 million American children live in poverty, Petit said. "Over eight million U.S. children have no health insurance and nearly three million children nationwide each year are reported abused and neglected," he added.

The report looked at 10 commonly recognized measurements of child well-being, Petit said. Most of the information was drawn from U.S. government sources and shows how the top 10 states compare with the bottom 10 states, he added.

For example, children in the lowest-ranking state, Louisiana, are twice as likely to die in their first year of life compared with children in the highest-ranking state, Vermont.

Children in Louisiana are also more than three times likelier to die between the ages of 1 and 14, and three times more likely to die between the ages of 15 and 19, compared with children living in Vermont.

Children in Louisiana are also three times more likely to be born to a teenage mother and five times more likely to have mothers who received late or no prenatal care, than children in Vermont.

And children in Louisiana are more likely to live in poverty with no health insurance than children in Vermont. Louisiana children are also eight times more likely end up in jail and 13 times more likely to die from abuse and neglect, according to the report.

The 10 states at the bottom of the list are: Arizona (41); South Dakota (42); Nevada (43); Arkansas (44); South Carolina (45); Texas (46); Oklahoma (47); New Mexico (48); Mississippi (49); and Louisiana (50).

The 10 top states are: Vermont (1); Massachusetts (2); Connecticut (3); Rhode Island (4); New Hampshire (5); Hawaii (6); Iowa (7); Minnesota (8); Washington (9); and Maine (10).