Parental schooling & children's health.

Nearly one in every four children in the United States is born to a mother who has not finished high school, and more than one in eight is reared by such a mother during the critical preschool period. Large-scale studies show that the health and welfare of children are linked to the education level of their parents, with parent education often being a stronger predictor of child well-being than family income, single parenthood, or family size. Higher parent education levels make it more likely that children will receive adequate medical care and that their daily environments will be protected and responsive to their needs. Average parent education levels have risen over the last 30 years, but progress has slowed because of high rates of immigration from countries with lower education standards and the tendency of more advantaged women to have children later than less advantaged women. The education system and community organizations must provide young people who are not doing well in school with positive alternatives to low- education, high-risk parenthood. Health care providers should be proactive, teaching parents with few resources how best to promote their children's growth and development. The changing global economy makes it more important than ever that current and future generations of children are reared by parents who have adequate skills and training to be competent members of society and effective and responsible parents.

Health of our nation's children.

This report describes the health of children 17 years of age and under in the United States. The report discusses overall health status, prevalence of psychological disorders, access to health care and rates of health care utilization, characteristics of other family-controlled health variables, and family structure as it relates to health. All estimates are shown according to age of child as well as selected demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the family and health characteristics of the child. Particular attention is paid to age-, race-, and income-related disparities in the health of children. Estimates are based on data from the 1988 National Health Interview Survey on Child Health.

Developing an index of educational risk from health and social characteristics known at birth.

The goal of the work described in this report was to develop a new child health index that could be reported annually by the National Education Goals Panel for each of the 50 states, as well as for local areas. This index would serve as an indicator of health conditions at birth that relate to children's readiness to learn upon school entry. The new standard birth certificate adopted by nearly all states in 1989 contains more than a dozen items of information that are potentially useful for this purpose. The availability of these data make it possible to sum across the individual health factors to form a composite index made up of factors with demonstrated relevance to later educational performance for all children born in a given year in a given geographical area. In this paper, we describe the development of such an index. Our index consisted of six risk factors: late (third trimester) or no prenatal care, low maternal weight gain (<21 pounds), closely spaced birth (within 18 months of a previous birth to the same mother), three or more older siblings, mother smoked during pregnancy, or mother drank alcohol during pregnancy. In 1990, 55% of all births had none of these risk factors, while 14% had two or more of these risk factors. There were substantial variations by race and ethnicity on this index. American Indian births fared the worst with only 37% of such births having no risks and 28% having two or more risks. Asian births, on the other hand, had the best start on life with 62% of Asian births showing no risks and 11% showing two or more risks. To demonstrate the importance of the index to future school success, we analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, predicting from birth characteristics to children's reading and vocabulary test scores at ages 4 and 5.

Developmental, learning, and emotional problems. Health of our nation's children, United States, 1988.

The data presented in this report show that developmental, learning, and behavioral disorders are among the most prevalent chronic conditions of childhood and adolescence. Overall, nearly 20 percent of young people ages 3-17 years were found to have had one or more of these conditions. By the time they reached ages 12-17 years, 1 in 4 adolescents, and nearly 3 in 10 male adolescents, had experienced one of these disorders. When very young children with developmental delays were included, the total number of U.S. children affected came to about 10.7 million. As high as these figures may seem, it is altogether possible that they are underestimates of the true prevalence of the conditions. The only childhood disorders counted in NHIS-CH were those that had been recognized by parents or identified by physicians, psychologists, or teachers and communicated to parents with sufficient clarity that the parents were able to report them to survey interviewers. There is reason to believe that some developmental, learning, and emotional disorders of children are not recognized as such, or the assessment of teachers or health professionals are not understood or not accepted by parents. Confusion over changing diagnostic terminology and simple forgetting of problems that occurred in the past probably work to reduce the reporting of these conditions as well. Despite the limitations of parental reporting, it is useful to have data on the prevalence of psychological disorders in young people based on standard survey questions put to the parents of a large and nationally representative sample of children. Estimates derived from NHIS-CH provide national benchmarks on the overall frequency of recognized psychological disorders in children and on the relative frequency of such problems in different population groups. The findings with regard to overall prevalence were that 4.0 percent of all children 17 years of age and under had delays in growth or development, 6.5 percent of children ages 3-17 years had learning disabilities, and 13.4 percent had significant emotional or behavioral problems. The proportions of all children ages 3-17 years who had ever received treatment or counseling for the conditions were about 2 percent for developmental delays, just over 5 percent for learning disabilities, and more than 10 percent for emotional or behavioral problems. These proportions fall within the range of prevalence estimates that have appeared in the literature.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)