New Child Health Report Released

Voices for Vermont’s children has released its new children’s health report: The State of Our Children: KIDS COUNT in Vermont Health Report.  The report highlights state-level trends in key measures of maternal and child health in Vermont.

Healthy Vermonters guidelines, which are established by the Vermont Department of Health each decade to highlight goals and progress, are used as benchmarks throughout the Voices for Vermont’s Children report.

As well as measures of health, the report includes related indicators such as poverty and safety net participation rates over time. According to Healthy Vermonters 2020, “Even in the healthiest state, we are not all equally healthy,” and data in The State of Our Children reflect this reality. Voices for Vermont’s Children reports that child poverty in Vermont has increased 25 percent since 2007.

“The health of children is an important indicator of the health of our state and nation,” says Sarah Teel, Research Associate at Voices for Vermont’s Children,  “and Vermont’s commitment to children’s healthy development is reflected in a number of our report’s measures of wellbeing.”  According to the most recent data available, 98 percent of Vermont children and youth have health insurance coverage, infant mortality has declined 21% since 2000, and teen births are on the decline.

Unfortunately, there are still threats to our children’s health and wellbeing.  Immunization rates are too low, too many children did not receive routine dental care in 2011, and the economic challenges that many Vermont children face—including food insecurity and hunger are on the rise.

In addition to this state-level data, Voices also publishes fact sheets on each of the 14 Vermont counties.  These County Pages include many of the same indicators in the health report, reported at the county level.  These are available here.

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The information in this report will be available on January 10th on the Voices for Vermont’s Children website at www.voicesforvtkids.org.

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