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Welfare of teens, children shows decline in some areas
Education Station
Education Station is your station for news about K-12 and higher education in the state of Oklahoma. We’ll also tell you about trends in education, and occasionally post off-beat or just plain intriguing bits of news.
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Oklahoma teenagers are having fewer babies, commit fewer violent crimes and drop out of school less often, but progress in other areas is eroding, according to the 2007-08 edition of the Oklahoma Kids Count Factbook.
The annual report from the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy measures the welfare of the state's children in 12 categories. It further measures that state's 77 counties by economic status and children's behavioral health.
Compared to mid-1990s or early 2000 benchmarks, the same nine measures showed improvement in the 12 th annual report. Three indicators worsened this year: low birthweight, very low birthweight and child abuse and neglect.
Each year, more than 13,000 Oklahoma children are abused or neglected, according to the child advocacy institute.
The state's 32 poorest counties have the highest older teen birth rates and child and teen death rates, according to the report. These counties also are among the worst in confirmed cases of child abuse and neglect.
The 2007-08 report includes a section on the behavioral health of the state's children and an index that reflects youth suicides, autism prevalence and poverty, among other measures. Cimarron County is best in the index, which is supposed to show the likelihood that a child residing in that county will have a mental illness, problems with addiction or "severe emotional disturbance." Adair County is worst.
Almost 90,000 Oklahoma children in 2005 suffered from mental or behavioral impairments, according to the report.
Oklahoma had 853,336 children in 2005.
The report will be publicly released today in Tulsa.