The approximately 2000 children under 18 who comprise about one quarter of Daviess County’s population are less likely to live in poverty than the county’s children five years earlier, according to the KIDS COUNT Data Book, released recently by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The data is based on five-year time spans, 2008 to 2012 and 2013 to 2017.
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The Annie E. Casey Foundation ranks Daviess County as 20th of 115 counties in child well-being this year, a noticeable improvement in ranking from 36th in the 2015 report.
The county rank for an outcome or indicator represents the relative position of a county in the context of all 114 Missouri counties and St. Louis City, with “1” indicating the most positive finding and “115” the worst.
In 2013, 654 children in Daviess County lived in poverty, but in 2017, 473 of the county’s children lived in poverty. While one of Daviess County’s indicators remained stable and one worsened, most saw trends toward the better.
The number of low birth-weight infants worsened, with an increase from 31 in 2013 to 37 in 2017. The number of preventable hospitalizations for all causes for children under 18 saw no change in the time ranges, staying stable at 10.
Improvement was shown in the following indicators:
Economic Well Being: food insecurity for children, from 470 to 400.
Health: child asthma ER rates, from 13 to 8.
Family & Community: Births to teens, ages 15-19, from 9 to 5.
Substantiated child abuse/neglect cases, from 9 to 7.
Education: graduation rate, from 79 to 90.
The 30th edition of the Data Book — a comprehensive annual report on child well-being for the United States and every state – examines change in how the nation’s kids are doing since the first Data Book was published in 1990 by measuring indicators over time in four areas research consistently shows are important in children’s lives: economic well-being, education, health, and family and community.
State Ranking
The Annie E. Casey Foundation ranks the entire state of Missouri as 28th of 50 states in child well-being this year, a slight decline in ranking from 26th in the 2018 report.
The 2019 KIDS COUNT Data Book reports that more than 13 million U.S. children live in poverty, and the nation disparately fails to equip many children with what they need to reach their full potential, especially in communities of color. Obstacles that perpetuate racial disparities can derail African-American, American Indian and Latino kids, undercutting the incredible individual potential of these children. Dismantling these barriers will lead to a brighter future for kids and a stronger America.
The Casey Foundation calls on elected officials and other policymakers to:
- Count all kids. Ensure the 2020 census counts all children, especially those under age 5 and from hard-to-count areas.
- Expand the programs that make and keep kids healthy. In Missouri, staying committed to ensuring all children have access to high quality, reliable, affordable health care including Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
- Provide the resources that are proven to help families lift themselves up economically. Federal and state earned income tax credits (EITC) and child tax credit programs mean working parents can use more of their take-home pay to meet their children’s needs.
- “America’s children are one-quarter of our population and 100 percent of our future,” said Casey Foundation President and CEO Lisa Hamilton. “All of the 74 million kids in our increasingly diverse country have unlimited potential, and we have the data, knowledge and evidence to create the policies that will help them realize it. It’s incumbent on us to do just that.”