How Well Off Are Kent County’s Moms And Children?

COVENTRY, RI — A new report shows Kent County has an extremely low concentration of disadvantaged families when compared with other U.S. counties.

The 2023 Health of Women and Children Report released earlier this month by United Health Care Foundation, the insurer’s nonprofit foundation, found that overall, maternal deaths, drug deaths among women and child injury deaths all trended upward. Teen births and vaping among high school students appear to be going down.

Overall, Rhode Island ranked No. 12 in the snapshot of health and well-being of women and children, based on an analysis of data from 34 distinct sources across 122 measures.

According to the data, the following are among the strengths of women and children in Rhode Island:

• Low child mortality rate
• High percentage of women receiving early and adequate prenatal care
• High adolescent HPV vaccination rate.

According to the data, the following are among the challenges for women and children in Rhode Island:

• High percentage of low-risk cesarean deliveries
• Low prevalence of physical activity among children
• High prevalence of physical inactivity among women.

Some parts of Rhode Island are doing worse than others when compared to other U.S. counties, which have a higher percentage of neighborhoods with various problems, ranging from families who don’t have enough money, who are getting government help and have high unemployment rates among people 16 or older. These neighborhoods also have a lot of kids.

According to the data, Kent County is not among those struggling counties. Kent County overall has zero percent of its households (with children) that are located in census tracts for which the averaged z-score of the following factors is below the 75th percentile: family households below the poverty line, individuals receiving public assistance, female-headed households, unemployment ages 16 and older and population younger than 18. Counties in higher quintiles have a greater disadvantage relative to all U.S. counties.

Overall, the analysis showed Minnesota, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Hawaii, respectively, are the healthiest states for women of childbearing age and children. Mississippi had the greatest opportunity to improve, followed by Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and West Virginia.

The researchers noted several trends nationwide that they found troubling:

• Maternal mortality, especially among racial and ethnic groups, increased 29 percent from 2014-2018 to 2017-2021.
• The rate of drug deaths among women continued to climb, up 27 percent in 2019-2021 from 2016-2008.
• The number of injury deaths among children 11 percent — an increase of roughly 3,800 deaths — between 2016-2018.

• Despite a 10 percent increase in high health status among women — the percentage of women who reported that their health was very good or excellent — several mental and preventive health measures worsened. Frequent mental distress increased, and the number of women’s health providers decreased.
• While there were some positive trends like declining teen births and reduced vaping among high schoolers, the overall landscape of youth health showed setbacks in early childhood education and broad disparities.

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