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Disparities
at Birth Persist in Urban Areas
Read 2003 Kid's Count Data
for Michigan's Largest Cities (PDF, 10 pages,
size=267k)
Analysis by Kids Count in Michigan, September 16,
2003
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visit
https://www.bridges4kids.org.
Despite improvement since 1990 in Michigan’s largest cities on
some measures of a healthy and promising start to life, urban
babies in 2001 continued to start life at a greater disadvantage
than those born elsewhere in the state, according to the latest
analysis released by Kids Count in Michigan. The Right Start:
Conditions of Babies and Their Families in Michigan’s Largest
Cities (1990-2001) reviewed the latest data for the state’s 35
largest cities and identified the best and worst performance on
each measure of a healthy and promising start to life. The
report uses data provided by the Vital Records and Health Data
Development Section of the Michigan Department of Community
Health.
“Birth
conditions for babies reveal striking disparities between urban
and non-urban areas,” said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, senior research
associate at the Michigan League for Human Services and Kids
Count in Michigan project director. “In 2001 one of every four
urban babies was born to a woman without a high school education
despite the dramatic declines in teen births over the 1990s.”
The state’s 35
largest cities as a group made progress on four measures of a
healthy birth between 1990 and 2001:
-
Maternal smoking
during pregnancy decreased by 30 percent --from 21 percent of
mothers in 1990 to 14 percent in 2001. (This was the only risk
measure where cities had a lower average than non- urban areas.)
-
Teen births
dropped by 26 percent--from 17 to 12 percent of live births in
2001.
-
Repeat Teen
Births (to teens who had already borne a child) declined by 17
percent--from 29 percent in 1990 to 24 percent in 2001.
-
Maternal
education: (mothers with less than 12 years of education)
improved by only 9 percent in Michigan’s urban areas, compared
to 19 percent in non-urban areas. Almost a quarter (23%) of all
urban births are to mothers without a high school education
compared to less than a fourth (17%) in non-urban areas.
On the other
four measures, maternal and infant well-being in Michigan’s
urban areas improved minimally or not at all:
-
Late or No
Prenatal Care did not improve for the average newborn in
Michigan cities, but among non-urban babies the share receiving
such care dropped by 19 percent.
-
Low-Birthweight
Babies decreased hardly at all (1%) among urban infants and rose
by 12 percent among non-urban infants.
-
Preterm Births
declined slightly (5%) among urban newborns and rose by 12
percent among non- urban infants
-
Non-Marital
Births decreased slightly (6%) among urban newborns and rose by
7 percent among non-urban infants.
“Conditions at
birth reflect the circumstances of the critical early years for
these children,” said Michele Corey, community advocacy director
at Michigan’s Children. “By looking at these data, communities
can assess areas of progress and need.”
While cities
varied widely on the different measures, in general, babies born
in the more affluent cities of Troy, Rochester Hills, and
Farmington Hills were less likely to be born low birthweight or
preterm or to a woman without a high school education than those
in Pontiac, Flint or Detroit. Smoking during pregnancy reached
the highest levels in the cities of Taylor, Bay City, and
Lincoln Park with one of every four new mothers compared to only
2 percent of new mothers in Ann Arbor. The Right Start analysis,
as well as data for Michigan’s 35 largest cities and all 83
counties, is available at the League’s website. A more
detailed analysis of these same measures by race and ethnicity
will be released next winter. Kids Count in Michigan, a
collaborative project of the Michigan League for Human Services
and Michigan’s Children, is part of a broad national effort to
measure the well-being of children at state and local levels.
The project regularly collects and publishes such information to
enlighten public policy and community action. Its 2003 state
data book with county profiles of child well-being, is scheduled
for release this fall. The state project is part of a nationwide
network supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation of Baltimore,
Maryland. The Detroit-based Skillman Foundation, as well as the
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation and United Ways,
also provide funding for the Michigan project.
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