This month the Annie E. Casey Foundation released its annual Kids Count report, a national and state-by-state effort to track the status of children in the United States. The report details that the national rate of children living in poverty is 11 percent for white children, 36 percent for African Americans and Native Americans and 28 percent for Hispanics.

The South and Southwest continue to have the highest percentage of children living in poverty. The state with the best child well-being ranking is New Hampshire, followed by Minnesota and Massachusetts. The three states at the bottom of the rankings are Mississippi, Louisiana, and New Mexico. The overall ranking map (see graphic) also reflects significant regional overtones. Except for Maine and Rhode Island, all of the New England states rank in the top 10. In the Northern Plains, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wisconsin are all ranked in the top 12. At the other end of the spectrum, states in the South and Southwest dominate the lower part of the ranking. The 12 states with the lowest overall rank in terms of child well-being are all located in the South or Southwest.

Other key findings include:

* Low-birthweight babies
Lowest (percentage): Alaska, Oregon, Washington (6.1 percent)
Highest: Mississippi (11.8 percent)

* Infant mortality
Lowest: Utah (4.5 deaths per 1,000 live births)
Highest: Mississippi (11.3 deaths per 1,000 live births)

* Child death rate
Lowest: New Hampshire (8 deaths per 100,00 children ages 1-14)
Highest: Louisiana (34 deaths per 100,000 children ages 1-14)

* Teen death rate
Lowest: Hawaii (37 deaths per 100,000 teens ages 15-19)
Highest: Louisiana, Wyoming (103 deaths per 100,000 teens ages 15-19)

* High school dropout
Lowest: North Dakota (3 percent)
Highest: Louisiana (11 percent)

* Children living in families where no parent has full-time, year-round employment.
Lowest: North Dakota (24 percent)
Highest: Louisiana (43 percent)

* Children living in poverty
Lowest: Maryland, New Hampshire (10 percent)
Highest: Mississippi (30 percent)

* Children living in single-parent households
Lowest: Utah (18 percent)
Highest: Mississippi (45 percent)

For more information by state, check out the Kids Count Data Center.

Labels: children, louisiana, mississippi, poverty

A new study by government scientists is the first to document regional differences in the incidence of childhood cancers -- and it shows that the South has the lowest reported rate of all U.S. regions.

But it's still unclear whether fewer children in the South are getting cancer, or whether fewer children there are having their cancers diagnosed.

The study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, found that childhood cancer in the United States is relatively rare, affecting about 166 out of every one million children. While the Northeast has the highest rate with 179 cases per million children, the South has the lowest rate with 159 cases per million. The rate for the West was 165 per million, while the Midwest's rate was 166 per million.

The researchers looked at children up to age 14 and adolescents between 15 and 19 years of age who were diagnosed with cancer from 2001 to 2003. They found that the cancers occurring most frequently in children are leukemias, cancers of the central nervous system, and lymphomas, which originate in the immune system.

Besides finding differences among regions, the researchers also discovered differences in cancer rates among racial and ethnic groups. For example, the rate of leukemias for Hispanic children at 53.71 per million was significantly higher than that of non-Hispanic children at 41.37 per million. At the same time, the rate of central nervous system cancers was significantly lower for Hispanic children (25 per million) than for non-Hispanic children (30.31 per million). Overall, white, non-Hispanic, adolescent boys have the highest cancer incidence rate.

While the Northeast has the highest childhood cancer incidence rates, it also has the lowest childhood cancer death rate of all the U.S. regions.

Some childhood cancer experts are stumped by the findings, the Associated Press reports:

Dr. Rafael Ducos, a children's cancer physician at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans, said the South's low rates were perplexing and might simply reflect under-reporting there and over-reporting in other regions.

"I'm at a loss to explain it," he said.

Scientists say environmental factors including radiation, other pollution, and the age of housing stock might be factors behind the regional disparity in cancer rates. So might access to quality health care. Dr. Lindsay Frazier, a cancer specialist at Children's Hospital Boston and Dana Farber Cancer Institute, told the AP that there might be better access to cancer centers in the Northeast resulting in more diagnoses; that could also explain why children's cancer death rates are lowest there.

The study appears in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Labels: cancer, CDC, children, health care, health disparities, public health