Children's Bureau Express

2012 KIDS COUNT Data Book

Annie E. Casey's 2012 KIDS COUNT Data Book is now available and features data demonstrating the continued impact of the nation's economic recession on children and families. KIDS COUNT is an annual report that presents statistics on key indicators of child well-being and State rankings on overall well-being. This year's report—the 23rd—includes a new, domain-specific index centered on four child-level indicators: (1) economic well-being, (2) education, (3) health, and (4) family and community.

Each of the four new domains is composed of four indicators, for a total of 16 indicators. The domain categories are equally weighted, and the new index places greater emphasis on education and family and community. The new health domain also is focused more on health status and less on mortality.

Trends in this year's Data Book begin with 2005 and continue through the most recent year for which data are available for each indicator. Well-being across the health and education domains show long-term improvement. However, data shows that the recent U.S. recession caused a spike in child poverty levels. The number of children living in poverty increased by nearly 30 percent from 12.2 million in 2000 to 15.7 million in 2010.

The full report, State rankings, and media resources are available on the KIDS COUNT Data Center website:

http://datacenter.kidscount.org/databook/2012/

Related Item

See "America's Children in Brief" in this issue.

<—Previous Section Next Article—> Next Section—>