Sunday, February 27, 2000
Infant mortality jumps after four-year decline
BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The number of infants who died in the Tristate before age 1 increased by 12 percent in 1998, reversing a four-year decline.
Aside from the mortality statistics, The Cincinnati Enquirer's sixth annual Tristate Child Index shows the state of local children remains relatively unchanged, in spite of a healthy economy and 107 months of uninterrupted economic growth, the longest expansion in U.S. history.
“Children are no less poor,” said Eileen Cooper Reed, child advocate for the Children's Defense Fund's Greater Cincinnati Project. Child poverty increases the risks of low educational attainment, abuse and neglect and poor health.
Infant mortality is one of 12 categories that the newspaper measures to determine the well-being of Tristate children. The Enquirer collects the most recent statistics available for each of the eight counties and compiles regional rates, then compares them to national numbers. Some charts use 1998 statistics. Others are for 1999.
The number of infants dying “raises issues of economic disparity in access to health care, age, education and race,” said George Graham, director of the Northern Kentucky Independent District Health Department.
One reason the Tristate rate has historically been high is a high rate of teen pregnancy, health officials say. Many teens have poor diets, smoke and drink alcohol during pregnancy and lack information about prenantal care.
The region's infant mortality rate jumped from 7.5 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1997 to 8.4 deaths. The Tristate's rate of infant death is 17 percent worse than the 7.2 rate nationwide.
The sixth index also shows:
• Tristate students drop out of school less often than children nationwide.
• The median household income in Greater Cincinnati is higher than in the rest of the country.
• The Tristate's rate of child support collection is also higher.
• The Tristate continues to grade poorest in juvenile violent crime, a trend juvenile court officials say results from reporting that often counts multiple charges for a single arrest.
The number of juvenile homicides fell to a six-year index low of 10 in 1998, down from a high of 36 in 1995. But assault, sex offense and robbery numbers remained consistently high compared to national figures.
• Lower rates of Tristate children are abused and neglected, living in foster homes and receiving welfare.
In the wake of federal welfare reform legislation, the number of local children who receive welfare has been cut in half in two years.
In Greater Cincinnati, 4.7 per 1,000 children are on welfare. Nationwide, the rate is 7 per 1,000.
Officials with the Hamilton County Department of Human Services are pleased that predictions of huge increases in abuse, neglect and foster care rates have not occurred locally, even though rates are up slightly.
“When did anyone promise that welfare reform would make all of our problems go away?” said Lora Jollis, the department's director of client services. “Even if every client we put to work isn't better off — even if they're the same — isn't it better that children are seeing examples of work?”
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