2017 Kids Count Data Book: State Trends in Child Well-Being

Annie E. Casey Foundation

http://www.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/aecf-2017kidscountdatabook.pdf   

The most recent report completed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation gathers and studies data on a number of indicators that impact the health and well-being of children during childhood and later in adulthood.  The indicators are broken down into four domains:  economic well-being, education, health, and family and community.  According to the report:

• Well-being:  Improvement nationally on all four economic well-being indicators
• Education:  Improvement in preschool enrollment and high school graduation; two education indicators have worsened over the past five years
• Health:  Three out of four health indicators showed improvement; this includes fewer children lacking access to health insurance coverage
• Family and Community:  trends were mixed; teen birth rate and percentages of children living with parents lacking a high school diploma improved; percentage of children living in single-parent families (where resources tend to be fewer) and number of children growing up in a high-poverty neighborhood increased

What does this mean for Iowa?  For Scott County?  In each of the four domains listed, Iowa consistently ranked in the top 13 of the 50 states.  A number of efforts in the Scott County community find ways to make social and physical environments that promote good health for all; this is also known as focusing on the social determinants of health.  The conditions in which people live explain in part why some people are healthier than others and why some people are not as healthy as they could be.  The more our community knows about how our homes, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, and communities impact our wellbeing, the better off our community will be in finding effective ways to impact health.