State slips on kids' health care, report says

BY DAVID RUNK

Associated Press

DETROIT -- Michigan is seeing its percentages of overweight high school students, underweight babies and child abuse go up, putting the state at risk of missing national health-improvement goals, according to the annual Kids Count in Michigan report.

Although fewer Michigan teens say they're binge drinking or using tobacco, the report found that more are getting too little exercise. The state's black children lag behind whites in most of the 18 health areas examined, according to the report, released today, although black teens were about half as likely as whites to report binge drinking or tobacco use.

``We're clearly not making a big priority of making sure kids are as healthy as they can be,'' said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, senior research associate with the Michigan League for Human Services in Lansing and Kids Count in Michigan project director.

Unless the state acts more decisively in the next few years, Michigan will fail to meet many goals for children in the federal government's 10-year Healthy People 2010 public- health plan, the report said.

In many ways, Kalamazoo County mirrors Michigan on children's health issues, Zehnder-Merrell said.

She noted that Kalamazoo County has high percentages of preterm births, low birthweight and mothers receiving inadequate prenatal care.

``Those indicators are actually worsening in Kalamazoo, and at the state level they're barely making any improvement,'' Zehnder-Merrell said. ``What is particularly troubling is that when you look at these indicators for children and break out the rates by race, the rates for African-Americans are routinely at least double, and in the case of infant mortality, triple the rate of whites.''

But the news is not all negative for Kalamazoo County, Zehnder-Merrell said. Children in the county are faring better in recent years in terms of births to teen mothers, immunization rates, lead poisoning and asthma hospitalizations, she said.

Births to teens in the county, for example, went from 33.8 percent in 2000 to 30.4 percent in 2005, which was below the state level of 33.6 percent.

The Kalamazoo County Multi-Purpose Collaborative Body -- made up of representatives of families, schools, courts, mental-health agencies and the Department of Human Services -- planned to hold a news conference at 9 this morning at the Free Clinic of Kalamazoo to discuss the new Kids Count report, which is available online.

``The overall message is that health goes beyond access to health care,'' Zehnder-Merrell said. ``Community and state policy needs to focus on strategies to address these issues. We have No Child Left Behind, and we keep lifting our expectations of what kids should be able to do in school, but we're not focusing on making improvements in their health. The bottom line is unhealthy children cannot be successful students.''

The percentage of low-birthweight babies born to Michigan mothers rose from 7.9 percent in 2000 to 8.3 percent in 2005, despite a goal of 5 percent by 2010. Kalamazoo County matched the state rates.

- The percentage of low-birthweight infants among blacks was double that among whites.

- Infant mortality rates among black children and hospitalizations for asthma among young blacks were about three times as high as for whites.

23.8 percent of women who gave birth in Kalamazoo County in 2005 received less than adequate prenatal care, compared to 16.8 percent in 2000. That was above Michigan's 2005 rate of 21.9 percent.

-  There were 11.4 confirmed cases of child abuse or neglect per 1,000 Michigan children in 2006, up from 10.3 cases in 2000 and above the 2010 goal of 10.

-  12 percent of state high school students reported being overweight in 2006, up from 11 percent in 2001 and above the goal of 5 percent.

-  62 percent of state high school students said they got regular, vigorous exercise, down from 65 percent in 2001 and below the target rate of 85 percent.

Good news

-  Births to Kalamazoo County teens dropped from 33.8 percent in 2000 to 30.4 percent in 2005 (when the state rate was 33.6 percent).

-  81 percent of Michigan toddlers were fully immunized in 2005, beating a goal of 80 percent.

-  A greater percentage of children were tested for lead poisoning in Kalamazoo County in 2003-05 than in 1998-2000 (9.8 percent vs. 5.7 percent). A smaller percentage tested positive for it (1.9 percent vs. 6.3 percent).

-  In 2005, a goal to bring down fighting among high school students was surpassed (30 percent said they were involved in a fight over the past 12 months; the goal was 32 percent).

Source: Kids Count in Michigan Data Book 2007