THE 2020 KIDS COUNT DATA BOOK IS OUT!
State Trends in Child Well-Being
ABOUT THE DATA BOOK:
The KIDS COUNT index reflects child health and education outcomes as well as risk and protective factors, such as economic well-being, family structure and community context. The index incorporates a developmental perspective on childhood and includes experiences across life stages, from birth through early adulthood. The indicators are consistently and regularly measured, which allows for legitimate comparisons across states and over time. Organizing the index into domains provides a more nuanced assessment of child well-being in each state that can inform policy solutions by helping policymakers and advocates better identify areas of strength and weakness. For example, a state may rank well above average in overall child well-being, while showing the need for improvement in one or more domains. Domain-specific data can strengthen decision-making efforts by providing multiple data points relevant to specific policy areas. The 16 indicators of child well-being are derived from federal government statistical agencies and reflect the best available state and national data for tracking yearly changes. Many of the indicators are based on samples, and, like all sample data, they contain some random error. Other measures (such as the child and teen death rate) are based on relatively small numbers of events in some states and may exhibit some random fluctuation from year to year. The Foundation urges readers to focus on relatively large differences across states, as small differences may simply reflect small fluctuations, rather than real changes in the wellbeing of children. Assessing trends by looking at changes over a longer period of time is more reliable. State data for past years are available on the KIDS COUNT Data Center (datacenter.kidscount.org). The KIDS COUNT Data Book utilizes rates and percentages because that is the best way to compare states and to assess changes over time within a state. However, the focus on rates and percentages may mask the magnitude of some of the problems examined in this report. Therefore, data on the actual number of children or events are provided on pages 25-28 and on the KIDS COUNT Data Center. The Foundation includes data for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico in the appendices, but not in the state rankings because they are significantly different from any state and comparisons are not instructive. It is more useful to look at changes for these geographies over time or to compare the District of Columbia with other large cities. Data for many child well-being indicators for the 50 largest cities (including the District of Columbia) are available on the KIDS COUNT Data Center, which also contains statistics for children and families in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
YOU CAN DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THE 44-PAGE DATA BOOK AT:
https://www.aecf.org/resources...86fd5ef3ba-150829545
IN THE DATA BOOK YOU WILL FIND STATISTICS FOR THE UNITED STATES AND FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL STATE REGARDING CHILDREN'S HEALTH, EDUCATION, FAMILIES, AND COMMUNITIES.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2020). The 2020 KIDS COUNT Data Book: 2020 State Trends in Child Well-Being. Baltimore, MD: Retrieved from www.aecf.org.
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