Youths’ well-being better, but they still face some problems

Suicide on rise, and mortality high for black babies

Colorado kids are doing better on several fronts than they were 25 years ago, including in areas of public health, early development and education, according to a report released Thursday.

In 2016, Colorado’s infant mortality rate was nearly half of what it was in 1991, the teen birth rate plummeted by nearly 70 percent and the uninsured rate for kids reached a record low.

The number of spaces in early-learning programs such as the Colorado Preschool Program climbed steadily, and the share of Colorado kindergartners enrolled in a full-day program increased fivefold, according to the 25th edition of Kids Count from the Colorado Children’s Campaign.

But, in some ways, the fortunes of kids have declined since the first Kids Count report in 1993.

In 2016, the teen suicide rate in Colorado — consistently one of the highest in the nation — reached a rate not seen in the previous 25 years.

And although infant-mortality rates have declined overall, they remained “unacceptably” high for black babies — in part due to the stress and discrimination their mothers face, Colorado Children’s Campaign officials said.

All the while, Colorado’s school funding system hasn’t been updated in nearly a quarter of a century and the reading scores of Colorado fourth-graders have been stagnant for nearly a decade, with only about 40 percent of them reading proficiently, the report points out.

It’s a decidedly mixed bag for Colorado’s youngest and most vulnerable population, said Kelly Causey, the president and CEO of the Colorado Children’s Campaign.

“Colorado kids are better off in many ways since we started tracking well-being in Kids Count 25 years ago,” Causey said. “The huge improvements we’ve seen in health, development and education are a lifeline to Colorado kids and families.” Yet, she said, “we’ve seen the poverty rate increase due to growing economic inequality here and across the United States.”

The Colorado Children’s Campaign is a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group. Its annual Kids Count report includes data for every county in Colorado on child demographics, economic security, health, early education and K-12 education.

The latest edition of Kids Count examines child well-being trends across the 25-year history of the report, campaign officials say.

Many of the improvements in child well-being cited in the report are due to specific public policies Colorado legislators passed during the past 25 years, Causey said. “We know that with smart, data-driven public policy, Colorado can remove obstacles to success that kids in our state still face,” Causey said.

One of the biggest Colorado success stories is the increase in the number of kids with health

insurance — with an uninsured rate for kids under 18 at a record low of 4 percent. In all, the number of kids without heath insurance coverage fell by more than 120,000 from 2008 to 2016, according to Kids Count.

The low rate is due, in part, to Colorado’s expansion of Child Health Plan Plus, or CHP+, which serves children and pregnant women in families earning up to 260 percent of the federal poverty level.

Colorado saw one the largest percent changes in its infant-mortality rate between 2005-07 and 2012-14, with the rate falling by more than 20 percent, according to Kids Count. In 2016, only eight states had lower rates in the number of infant deaths during the first year of life from all causes.

All racial and ethnic groups in Colorado have experienced declining teen birth rates in recent years, with the birth rate for every 1,000 white teens falling from 38 to 10 between 1991 and 2016, while the rate for every 1,000 Latino teens dropped from 116 to 30 during that same span, the report said.

One of the most troubling areas pointed out by the report is teen suicide in Colorado. In 2016, 18 out of every 100,000 Colorado teens died by suicide — the highest teen suicide rate since 1991.

Among people ages 10-24 in Colorado, suicide is the leading cause of death, Kids Count said.

“Tragically, suicide has claimed the lives of far too many Colorado children and adolescents,” Causey said.