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• Report Summaries
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Content Summary
The 2000 KIDS COUNT Factbook provides statistical data on the status of children in cities and towns across the state of Rhode Island, and is an important resource for community leaders and policy-makers. This sixth annual work also includes an aggregate profile based on data from five core cities (Providence, Pawtucket, Woonsocket, Newport, and Central Falls) in which more than fifteen percent of children are impoverished. Using the most current available data, The 2000 KIDS COUNT Factbook presents 37 indicators in the areas of Family and Community, Economic Well-Being, Health, Safety, and Education. A new health indicator for 2000 is “Access to Dental Care.”

Major Findings
All data is specific to the state of Rhode Island, unless otherwise mentioned.

Children’s Health Insurance
Barriers to obtaining health insurance and accessing health care services include low family income and educational levels, lack of transportation, and language differences.
Nearly half of Rhode Island’s uninsured children live in families with incomes below the federal poverty line.
Nationally, poor children and Hispanic children are least likely to be insured.
Access to Dental Care
The lack of dental providers who accept public dental insurance for low-income families (Rite Care) contributes to the inadequate level of dental care among, primarily, impoverished children and minority children.
Women and Children Receiving WIC
Mothers and children who are poor, minority, or poorly educated benefit most from WIC.
Four of the five core cities have WIC participation rates exceeding the statewide average.
Women with Delayed Prenatal Care
Women who live in the core cities are less likely to begin prenatal care in the first trimester.
Black, Asian, and/or Hispanic women are nearly twice as likely as White women to delay prenatal care until after the first trimester.
Access to prenatal care in Rhode Island has improved for all racial and ethnic groups.
Low Birthweight Infants
Incidence of low birthweight is strongly linked to poverty.
Black women are twice as likely to have a low birthweight infant than White women, and the rate is higher than any other racial or ethnic group, due to higher rates of preterm delivery. Causes of preterm delivery are not well understood.
Rates of low birthweight infants have increased slightly for all race and ethnic groups except Asians between the late 1980s and the late 1990s.
Infant Mortality
Over the past ten years, the infant mortality rate has increased for Hispanic infants, but declined for all other racial and ethnic groups.
Compared to other countries’ overall rates, the U.S. ranks 47th in mortality rates for black infants.
Children with Lead Poisoning
Low-income children and minority children are most likely to be affected, due to a lack of newer and affordable housing.
Births to Teens
Blacks and Hispanics have the highest teen birth rates
In recent years, the birth rate for Black teens decreased, the birth rate for White teens remained level, and the birth rate for Hispanic and Asian teens increased significantly.
Alcohol, Drug, and Cigarette Use by Teens
Rates of alcohol abuse among Rhode Island students is higher than national rates, but has remained stable in the past few years.
Nearly half of all students surveyed reported that one or both parents smoked cigarettes.
Children with Asthma
Asthma is more common among low-income and minority children living in poor neighborhoods or in crowded housing.
A disproportionate percentage of hospitalizations for childhood asthma are for Black, Asian, and Hispanic children.
Additional Children’s Health Issues
There is a lack of available city and town data on children’s mental health and child immunization.

Unaddressed Issues or Concerns
Although the indicators in this report show low-income and minority populations to be particularly vulnerable to health risks, few connections are drawn between these two largely overlapping populations. A sufficient socioeconomic monitoring system, as described by Krieger and Zierler et al., would collect and generate information on health outcomes, gender, age, and race that would be readily available to the public. The advantage of such a database will be the establishment of patterns of association between various socioeconomic data, thus providing policy-makers with the information they need to enact the most efficient programs. Another report by Krieger and Chen, et al. demonstrates the usefulness of geocoding in explaining the racial disparities in poverty in Rhode Island.

Reference List
Krieger, N., S. Zierler, J. Hogan, P. Waterman, J. Chen, K. Lemieux, and A. Gjelsvik. “Geocoding and Measurement of Neighborhood Socioeconomic Position: A U.S. Perspective.” Neighborhoods and Health. Oxford University Press, 2003.

Krieger, N., J. Chen, P. Waterman, D. Rehkopf, and S. Subramanian. “Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Monitoring Socioeconomic Gradients in Health: A Comparison of Area-Based Socioeconomic Measures – The Public Health Disparities Geocoding Project.” American Journal of Public Health 93.10 (2003): 1655-1671.

How to Access Report
http://www.rikidscount.org/matriarch/LinksPage.asp_
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