2018-2019 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) Child and Family Health Measures: The Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health (DRC), a project of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI), under a cooperative agreement with the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), announces the release of the combined 2018-2019 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) Child and Family Health Measures.
Child Trends Databank: Reporters covering youth issues will find a wide range of topline information on social determinants and children via this database by Child Trends, a Maryland-based nonprofit research organization. The group analyzes data and delivers reports on the impact of more than 120 topics. Journalists can search by topics such as social and emotional learning, poverty, early childhood and food insecurity or by age: pregnancy and birth, infants/young children, adolescents and young adults.
NIH Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study: The National Institutes of Health’s Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study looks at brain development and child health in the United States. In February 2018, it released data for the first 4,500 of more than the 7,500 children studied to date. The study, which according to NIH is the largest U.S. long-term study of its kind, aims to examine various factors that influence “brain, cognitive, social, and emotional development.” Its initial release of baseline data includes information on basic participant demographics, physical and mental health assessments, substance use, culture and environment and neurocognition, among other data points. The data is available through the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Data Archive. The study will follow participants for 10 years and seeks to enroll 11,500 children by the end of 2018.
ChildHealthData.org: The Data Resource Center for Child & Adolescent Health, online at childhealthdata.org allows users to search for more than 200 child health indicators from national and state findings. Journalists and other researchers can search by topics such as prenatal care, Medicaid, medical homes and autism. Users can also search by U.S. state or region, or even try an interactive query to get started. Part of the Child & Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the site also includes information from specific surveys such as the National Children’s Health Survey and the National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs, among others. Reporters who are not on an immediate deadline can also request a dataset.
Childstats.gov: This federally-run website is a collaboration of 23 U.S. agencies across the government in an effort to centralize data related to child and family well-being. In addition to releasing an annual report summarizing its data, it also lists contacts for federal health researchers who oversee various data sets at each U.S. agency in the forum.
OECD Family Database: This Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development offers this database of information on family and child policies across the OECD countries. It collates data from various national and international databases from the OECD and other groups. The database includes information on 70 indicators in four categories (family structure, work and employment, public policies and child outcomes), including parental leave, preschool, family size, child poverty and vaccination rates, among others. OECD also offers a OECD Family Support Calculator, OECD Country Snapshots and a Child well-being module.
National Center for Children in Poverty: Young Child Risk Calculator: Based at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, the National Center for Children in Povertyoffers several data tools, including its young child risk calculator. The calculator helps give an idea of the vulnerability a child faces for poor health and over poverty-related issues based on potential risk factors. Other data tools include a policy tracker for all the U.S. states, and a look at family supports.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual KIDS COUNT Data Book includes data on children’s wellbeing and health in all 50 U.S. states. In 2016, researchers pinned Minnesota as the top state in the nation for overall child wellbeing. Massachusetts captured the No. 2 spot, followed by Iowa and New Hampshire. States at the bottom of the annual report’s ranking for 2016 included Louisiana, New Mexico and Mississippi.
Kidsdata.org: For California-based reporters, this is a powerful database on more than 500 measures of child health and well-being, all of it clearly sourced and mappable by legislative district and often down to the level of county, city, and school district. It’s sponsored by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health.
Child Poverty Demographics Wizard allows you to create custom tables of national- and state-level statistics about low-income or poor children with this online tool produced by the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
Childhood Lead Poisoning Data, Statistics, and Surveillance: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been collecting information on lead levels in children since April 1995 and offers two related databases, one for state level data and another for counties. Annual lead exposure data is gathered from blood lead tests from the 35 state and local health departments that the CDC funds to gather lead surveillance and included the highest lead level found. Any other data from states that are not funded is voluntary.