Florida Children Falling Behind in Health, Economic Well-Being

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A recent report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a research nonprofit that tracks the health and well-being of children and families found that Florida’s children are falling behind in economic well-being and health as the state ranked 40^th on the report’s list of states.

National trends find that children overall are getting healthier; however, the report found that Florida’s children in 2014 were less likely to be insured, more likely to be born at low birth weight, and abuse drugs and alcohol at higher rates than children in other states. Overall, Florida ranked 47^th in terms of child health. Florida is home to over 4.3 million Latinos, according to the Pew Research Center. This is 23% of their overall state population and 51% of these are native-born residents. In Florida, 28% of all births are to Latinos.

“In contrast with top-performing states, such as Minnesota, Massachusetts and Iowa, Florida has not made gains in many areas of child well-being and is being outpaced,” said Dr. Norin Dollard, research assistant professor and co-director of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Florida KIDS COUNT project at the University of South Florida.

The report determined that nearly 22% of children live in poverty nationwide and one in three children live in families where no member of the household has steady employment.

“With rising higher education costs, stagnant wages and a flimsy social safety net, teens are less likely than their parents or grandparents to obtain economic security,” said Patrick McCarthy, president and CEO of the Casey Foundation, in a statement accompanying the report. “For the sake of our economy and our society, we must reverse this trend to ensure that today’s youth — who will be the next generation of workers, parents and community leaders — have a successful transition to adulthood and beyond.”

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