Staying Well: The Family's and Community's Role

Overview

In many ways, America's 70 million children and adolescents are better off in 1998 than in earlier times, but not all children share in this improvement, according to a report, America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, issued by the Federal Interagency on Child and Family Statistics.

Overall, more children survived their first year. Far fewer children have high blood lead levels and fewer adolescents died, the report notes. What's more, an increasing number of young children are being read to by their families, are participating in early childhood education and are improving their math scores on national achievement tests.

But poverty still plagues America's children. One out of five children lives in poverty and includes more than 44 percent of black children, almost 40 percent of Hispanic children and 16 percent of white children.¹

In addition, more children had no health insurance during 1996. The number grew to 10.6 million, up from 9.8 million in 1995. That amounts to 15 percent of all children.

The effect on their health and well-being is marked. Impoverished children are more likely to experience housing problems and hunger, are less likely to be immunized, and less likely to have a parent working full-time all year, the government reported. Black infants also continue to be at much higher risk of low birthweight and infant mortality than are infants of other races.

These factors also translate to developmental problems, low reading comprehension, educational failure and immoderate risk taking for many children. And, injuries are now the leading case of death for children over one year of age.

Growing concern about these problems has prompted public health advocates to develop strategies that go beyond simply treating diseases and injuries. Building Bright Futures is one program aimed at preventing disease and promoting health. Supported by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bright Futures has a Children's Health Charter and Guidelines for the Health Supervision of Infants, Children and Adolescents.

1.U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau. 1994. Child Health USA '93 (DHHS Pub. No. HRSA-MCH-94-1). Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office.

General Principles

• Provide culturally appropriate (link to cultural competency) health
• information
• Educate the whole family so parents and children learn together
• Encourage adequate training for health practitioners in prevention, wellness and
• patient advocacy
• Support ongoing education in the workplace
• Promote smoking cessation, nutritious diets, weight loss and breast feeding,
• among other healthful behaviors at home, school, work and health care
• settings
• Ensure access to grocery stores, health care services, high-quality child care,
• adequate housing
• Support services that build physically and psychologically safe homes,
• schools and neighborhoods to reduce risk of injury, violence, abuse
• and exposure to environmental toxins

Conference Breakout Session Poster:

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Key web sites

• Kids' Health -- Run by the Nemours Foundation Center for Children's Health Media, this site is intended to help families make informed decisions about children's health by creating the highest quality health media. It is based in Philadelphia at the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del.
• National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health -- Based at Georgetown University, this center is dedicated to improving the health of children and families through national leadership in three key areas: state-of-the-art knowledge, program development, and policy analysis and education. A multidisciplinary faculty and staff--experts in pediatrics, public health, law, public policy, social work, nutrition, library science, communications, publishing, conference management, and systems technology – develops policy initiatives.
• Bright Futures – A project sponsored by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the U.S. Public Health Service and the Medicaid Bureau of the Health Care Financing Administration, Bright Futures offers goals to improve children's health.
• Maternal and Child Health Policy and Research Centers --
• Zero to Three-- This site, for parents and professionals, is devoted to the healthy development of infants and toddlers.

Research highlights

Popkin, Barry M. and J. Richard Udry. 1998. "Adolescent Obesity Increases Significantly in Second and Third Generation U.S. Immigrants: The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health," Journal of Nutrition 128:701-706.