REPORT SHOWS SETBACKS FOR NATION'S CHILDREN

Findings are described in detail in "America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2007", the U.S. government's annual report that monitors the well-being of the Nation's children and youth. The report is a compendium of the most recently released federal statistics on the nation's children, issued by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. It presents a comprehensive look at critical areas of child well-being. These encompass family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health.

Compared to national statistics for the previous year, there has been an increase in the percentage of children living with at least one working parent and the percentage of children living in households classified as food insecure has declined. High school students were more likely to have taken advanced academic courses and the percentage of young adults who completed high school has increased. The adolescent birth rate has dropped to a record low.

Increasing were:

• the percentage of children served by community water systems that did not meet all applicable standards for healthy drinking water,

• the percentage of children living in physically inadequate or crowded housing or housing that cost more than 30 percent of household income,

• the percentage of low birthweight infants also increased,

• the percentage of births to unmarried women, and

• the rate at which youth were perpetrators of serious violent crime increased slightly.

In 2005, 78.3 percent of children had at least one parent working year round, full time -- up from 77.6 percent in 2004, but below the peak of 80 percent in 2000. The report states that this percentage has remained relatively high, given the historical context of the early 1990s, when the percentage was 72 percent.

The report noted that secure parental employment reduces the occurrence of poverty and its attendant risks on children. Because most parents obtain health care for themselves and their children through their employers, a secure job for a parent can be important for determining if a child has health care.

"Secure parental employment may also enhance children's psychological well-being and improve family functioning by reducing stress and other negative effects that unemployment and underemployment can have on parents," the report explained.

Black, non-Hispanic children and Hispanic children were less likely than white, non-Hispanic children to have a parent working year round, full time. About 74 percent of Hispanic children and 62 percent of black, non-Hispanic children lived in families with secure parental employment in 2005, compared with 84 percent of white, non-Hispanic children.

The report stated that about 12 million children (17 percent) lived in households classified as food insecure in 2005, down from 19 percent in 2004. The report explains that a family's food security is its access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. The report's food security status is assessed on the basis of household self-reports of difficulty in obtaining enough food, reduced food intake, reduced diet quality, and anxiety about an adequate food supply.

"In some households classified as food insecure, only adults' diets and food intakes were affected, but in a majority of such households, children's eating patterns were also disrupted to some extent and the quality and variety of their diets were adversely affected," the report noted. "In a subset of food-insecure households -- those classified as having very low food security among children -- a parent or guardian reported that at some time during the year one or more children were hungry, skipped a meal, or did not eat for a whole day because the household could not afford enough food."

The percentage of children living in households with very low food security declined from 1.3 percent in 1995 to 0.7 percent in 1999 and has remained in the range of 0.6 to 0.8 percent since then.

"The increase in the percentage of children living with a working parent is welcome news," said Duane Alexander, M.D., Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health. "Secure parental employment helps to reduce the psychological toll on families, brought on by parental unemployment and underemployment."

"This year also saw a rise in the percentage of children with low birth-weight," Dr. Alexander said. Low birth-weight infants are at increased risk of dying in the first year of life, as well at risk for serious disability. He added that a variety of research efforts were under way to prevent preterm birth, a major cause of low birth-weight.