A new report released today indicates West Virginia has improved the well-being of its children in several arenas, but still lags behind other states in childhood poverty rates and other important indicators of health.
In the latest Kids Count Data Book, which examines state-by-state data from 2008 to 2014, West Virginia has risen out of the bottom 10 states and moved ahead of four other states to rank 39th in children's well-being. The report looks at four key domains - economic well-being, education, health and family/community - and examines four metrics within each domain.
The state's teen birth rate has decreased by more than 20 percent since 2008, from 47 births per every 1,000 to 37 births per every 1,000, according to the report. Dr. Rahul Gupta, state health officer and commissioner of the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health, said that rate is even better than reported going into 2016.
"Our current number from 2015 are 31.4 (out of 1,000), so it represents something like a 30 percent decrease from year to year," he said. "It is dropping quite rapidly."
The state has managed to improve other metrics, as well - 81 percent of its high schoolers graduated on time in 2014, compared to 77 percent in 2008, and only 7 percent of teens are both not in school and unemployed, falling by nearly 30 percent in six years. The state's biggest improvement by far was in the rate of uninsured teens, which has dropped by 57 percent to an all-time low of 3 percent.
"We have 97 percent of our children covered by health insurance; they had 3 percent of children uninsured, but at this point, it's probably closer to 2.5 percent," Gupta said. "We're very close, and we're one of the top states in the nation for the lowest rates of uninsured children.
"That's something to take pride in - that despite our poor socioeconomic conditions, we still have the audacity to cover nearly every child in our state."
Laura Gandee, interim executive director for Kids Count West Virginia, said that while the drop in teen pregnancy rates is promising, it hasn't been enough to catch up with national improvement. According to Kids Count, the average number of teen pregnancies in the U.S. fell to just 24 per 1,000 in 2014.
"Thankfully, things like teen pregnancy in West Virginia have started to turn in a positive way, but we are still not where we need to be. We're still at the bottom of the pack, because everyone else is improving as well," she said. "It is certainly good news that we've turned around the trend that seemed to be happening a few years ago with teen pregnancies."
Despite the state's progress, Gandee said it still is trailing in several key areas. Child and teen death rates fell in all states except two - Utah and West Virginia - and the state's rate of children in poverty still is above the national average at 25 percent. The number of children whose parents lack secure employment also is on the rise, jumping from 32 percent in 2008 to 36 percent in 2014.
"We have one in four children in poverty, and that's just unacceptable. There are things we can do right now to alleviate that burden," she said.
To better address the challenges facing the state's children, Kids Count launched its Race2Great Campaign, which focuses on four goals: to push for an earned income tax credit, establish quality preschool programs for three-year-olds, increase the tobacco tax and implement the state's comprehensive sex education program in every county to reduce the state's teen birth rate.
"Passing an earned income tax credit could immediately lift families and children out of poverty in West Virginia, and that's just something we all have to rally around," Gandee said. "The idea that there are a lot of poor people just doing nothing is a myth; these children's parents work, and they work very hard, but they just don't make enough money."
Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signed a budget bill Friday that includes a 65-cent tobacco tax increase, something Gandee said is a good start, adding that Kids Count is a proponent of a larger tobacco tax increase.
Gandee also noted that although West Virginia's 4-year-old preschool enrollment rate is stellar, increasing the number of 3-year-olds in the state who attend preschool could go a long way in improving long-term outcomes for children.
"In just a generation you can see significant changes in outcomes for adults and improvements to the economy," she said. "We know that for every dollar we invest in young children in high-quality preschool, they give a five-dollar return in terms of the economic prosperity that goes along with that investment."
To view the full 2016 data book, visit www.aecf.org.
Reach Lydia Nuzum at lydia.nuzum@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5189 or follow @lydianuzum on Twitter.