NASHVILLE - Good and bad news for Tennessee can be found in a just-released survey of child health and well-being.
Tennessee is 39th in the nation for children's overall well-being in the KIDS COUNT rankings, a summary of 10 indicators of health and economic factors that affect children which is issued annually by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. That's the state's highest ranking.
However, the most dramatic numbers reflect the impact of the recession. The number of children living in poverty has increased by 20 percent across the state, according to the survey. Mary Lou Hennrich, who heads Community Health Partnership, says these economic factors can't help but affect a family's health.
"It absolutely correlates with people's income and an education, because education is correlated with income. But if people had adequate income, their health would be better, and is better. Poverty is the root cause of ill health."
According to the report, more than 150,000 Tennessee children had at least one parent who was unemployed. However, the data also showed that the number of children receiving financial support from the state's Families First program has gone down to 7.3 percent, a reduction of 1.5 percent since 2005.
The report is online at datacenter.kidscount.org. |
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