Report Says Black, Hispanic Children Fare Poorly in Largest U.S. Cities
January 24, 2007
Report Says Black, Hispanic Children Fare Poorly in Largest U.S. Cities
An analysis of the living conditions of children in the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas by the Harvard School of Public Health shows “a consistently bleak picture for black and Hispanic children, compared to white and Asian children.” The report includes information on health factors such as disability rates, health insurance, births to teenager mothers, births to unmarried mothers, prenatal care, smoking during pregnancy, preterm births, and low birthweights. Harvard professor Acevedo-Garcia, a lead author of the study, said, “The analysis revealed that not only do black and Hispanic children literally live in different metropolitan neighborhoods than other children, but that black and Hispanic children face life experiences fraught with dangers to their well-being.” Factors that need to be addressed in order to improve the children’s lives include, first, alleviating child poverty (U.S. has the second-highest child poverty rate among developed countries), followed by reducing neighborhood and school segregation, Acevedo-Garcia said. The report, which is available online at http://diversitydata.sph.harvard.edu, is designed to enable readers to create profiles of specific urban areas.