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Children’s Health released their annual report regarding issues impacting Dallas County Children. Here’s what they’ve recommended our communities to prioritize in 2024.
Recommendations:
- Improve health coverage for uninsured Texas children and families.
- Remove barriers to high-quality, culturally competent care.
- Increase access to affordable housing throughout North Texas.
- Mitigate the impact of inflation on children’s health and well-being.
- Combat substance use and abuse in children and youth.
The organization also studied demographic changes in local youth, here are the results.
Total youth population:Â 680,444 – 53.0% Hispanic and/or Latino, 23.2% Other or Multiple Races, 22.1% Black/African American, 16.2% White/Caucasian Non-Hispanic, 5.9% Asian, 0.5% American Indian.
21.2% youth live in poverty: 27.0% Black/African American, 24.8% Hispanic and/or Latino, 7.6% White/Caucasian Non-Hispanic.
Additionally, Children’s Health compiled their research findings from the past calendar year.
Findings:
- Percentage of Texas children, 12.7%, without health insurance is more than double the national average 5.4%.
- 85% of eligible Texas children participate in Medicaid or CHIP while 92% nationally do.
- 40.1% of North Texas students were overweight or obese in 2022, up 34.4% since 2017.
- The number of childhood vaccinations given declined in all 7 counties from 2017-2022.
- 1 of 10 air-monitoring sites in North Texas met the EPA standard in 2022 for healthy ground-level ozone.
- About 22% of middle and high school students contemplated suicide in 2021.
- The 5 year survival rate for children with cancer has risen by almost 30%.
