US children healthier, except minorities

The adolescent birth rate has reached another record low, the death rate for children between ages 1 and 4 is the lowest ever and young children are more likely than ever to get their recommended immunizations, the annual U.S. government report on children finds.

But white children are healthier than black or Hispanic children and black children are much more likely to die violently, be assaulted or suffer some other violent crime.

And the first nationwide look at mental health shows about 5 percent of U.S. children have severe emotional, cognitive or behavioral disorders.

"The overwhelming majority of children - about 83 percent - are reported by their parents to be in very good or excellent health," Dr. Edward Sondik, Director of the National Center for Health Statistics, told a teleconference with reporters.

And fewer children are dying, the report compiled by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics found. In 2002, there were 31 deaths for every 100,000 children in this age group, down from 33 deaths per 100,000 in 2001.

"(Deaths) continue to go down whether from cancer, motor vehicle accidents, poisoning, drowning. They are all going down," Sondik said.

The report found the adolescent birth rate for 2003 was 22 for every 1,000 girls aged 15 to 17, down from 23 in 2002 and down from 39 births for every 1,000 girls in 1991. But the rate of births to black or Hispanic teen-agers is about double that of births to white teens, the report found.

MENTAL DISORDERS

Childhood immunization rates have peaked at 81 percent of children receiving the recommended series of vaccines, the report found - up from 78 percent in 2002. But just 76 percent of children living below the poverty level were fully vaccinated.

The report for the first time included mental health statistics and found that 2.7 million children have emotional or behavioral problems. Twice as many boys as girls were likely to suffer from such problems, said Dr. Susan Swedo of the National Institute of Mental Health.

"There were no striking racial differences. However, poverty certainly was a factor (with) two times as many children below (the) poverty line having difficulties as children who were not," Swedo told the briefing.

The rate at which youths were victims of serious violent crimes went up, from 10 per 1,000 young people ages 12 to 17 in 2002 to 18 per 1,000 in 2003, the report found. But this is down from 44 per 1,000 at the 1993 peak.

"It still represents a 60 percent reduction in the per capita rate compared to 1993," said Larry Greenfeld, Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the Department of Justice.

"Since 1993 about 4.9 million serious violent crimes against youth did not occur that would have occurred had the 1993 rate remained stable rather than declining," he said.