The latest edition of HRSA’s Child Health USA reports
that the birth rate in 1999 among
adolescents fell to a record low -- less than 50 births per
1,000 women ages 15 to 19.
Much of Child
Health USA 2001 -- the twelfth annual report on the
health status and service
needs of America’s children -- focuses on children with special
health care needs, defined as
youngsters with chronic conditions requiring services beyond
what most children need.
Access to physicians is a central issue for children with special
health care needs. Children with
disabilities, part of that group, make more physician visits
each year than other children. Among
children ages 5 to 14, 20 percent of those with disabilities
made four or five doctor visits per year,
compared to less than 5 percent of non-disabled children.
Although children with disabilities make
fewer visits to the doctor as they mature, the gap between them
and non-disabled children persists.
Other findings of Child Health USA 2001 include:
- Teen birth rates are much higher within minority groups.
Among Hispanics, the adolescent birth rate in 1999 was 93
births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 19; among African Americans,
84 births per 1,000.
- The mortality rate among African American infants is more
than twice that of whites, with 5.8 deaths per 1,000 live
births for whites in 1999 and 14.6 for African Americans.
- In 2000, nearly 73 percent of children 18 to 35 months
of age were fully immunized; close to a million children
still needed one or more doses of vaccine.
- The percentage of children covered by private health insurance
or by public programs increased. Between 1998 and
1999, the proportion of uninsured children declined from
15.4 percent to 13.9 percent. Among children in poverty,
the proportion dropped from 26.4 percent to 24.2 percent.
With the most current data available for public health professionals
and others in the public and private sectors, Child Health
USA, published by HRSA’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau,
is an easy-to-read snapshot of children’s health and includes
graphs and summaries of long-term trends. To order a
hard copy of the 2001 edition, visit
www.ask.hrsa.gov, and click on “Search Publications.”
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