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Montana Ranks Low In New KIDS COUNT Report

Three Children Work Togther On A Laptop
Lucelia Rebeiro (CC BY_SA 2.0)
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Flickr
Three Children Work Together On A Laptop

The 2019 KIDS COUNT Data Book was released Monday, and Montana and Wyoming had strong showings on the well-being of their children. But the two still fell well short in one important category-health.

Overall Montana and Wyoming rank in the middle of all 50 states, at 22nd and 21st respectively in this annual report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Thale Dillon, director of Montana KIDS COUNT, says the state ranks 44th overall in the area of health, but did see improvement in the number of children without health insurance.

That has actually dropped by over 50 percent since 2010. Another improvement that we have seen is the rate of child and teen death in the state since 2010 that has dropped by over 40 percent. And the percentage of births, that’s births to teen mothers has also dropped by over 40 percent.

But it’s the percentage of Montana teens who abuse alcohol and drugs—primarily alcohol-- that dropped the state’s ranking in health and overall. Montana ranks at the bottom in the area, along with four other states Health was also a problem for Wyoming, said Samin Dadelahi director Wyoming’s KIDS COUNT.

She said since 2010 Wyoming children and families are doing better in almost every category except health.

And then you look at health and you see that we are 49th in the state. So the only state that had a lower ranking than us was Alaska.

It’s estimated ten percent of Wyoming children do not have health insurance. That’s double the national average.

The 2019 KIDS COUNT Data Book is the 30th edition of an annual data study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. It uses the domains of health, education, economic well-being and family and community as an assessment of child well-being in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Kay Erickson has been working in broadcasting in Billings for more than 20 years. She spent well over a decade as news assignment editor at KTVQ-TV before joining the staff at YPR. She is a graduate of Northern Illinois University, with a degree in broadcast journalism. Shortly after graduation she worked in Great Falls where she was one of the first female sports anchor and reporter in Montana.