Institute Notes: A Dialogue on Overcoming Hunger and Poverty

Decrease in U.S. Child Well-Being

Many believe the United States is the “Land of Plenty,” but unfortunately, out of 33 industrialized countries, the U.S. ranked second worst for child well-being according to UNICEF. It also ranked 29^th for percentage of low birth-weight babies. The most recent data reported that the national average for low birth-weight babies was 8.5 percent, the highest it has been since 1968.

Low birth-weight babies, those born below 5.5 pounds, have a greater risk of dying during infancy or having health problems later on in life compared to healthy birth-weight babies. These risks have recently been brought to national attention when  KIDS COUNT  reported that the percentage of underweight babies born in the U.S.is the highest it has been in 40 years. Mississippi ranked worst with a state average of 11.8 percent of babies born under-weight while Alaska, Oregon and Washington tied for lowest at 6.1 percent.

KIDS COUNT is a national program that collects and reports data on the health and poverty status of our nation’s children based on ten categories. The latest report has found both progress and setbacks in the well-being of U.S. children. The indicators for teens have shown improvement, but have regressed for babies. While infant mortality rate has not changed, four other categories have gotten worse including low birth-weight babies, children living with jobless or underemployed parents, children in single-parent families, and children living in poverty.

There are many reasons for the sudden increase in low birth-weight. The coordinator of KIDS COUNT cited the fact that older women are using fertility treatments to get pregnant which often results in multiple births that can lead to an increase in under-weight babies; however, there has also been an increase in low birth-weight babies during single births. Black women have the greatest percentage of low birth-weight babies (13.6%) compared to whites (7.3%) and Hispanics (6.9%).

Poverty has increased in 32 states and 13.3 million U.S. kids, or 18 percent, are living in poverty. This is an increase of 1 million children since 2000. Thirty percent of children in Mississippi live in poverty, the highest state child poverty rate in the nation.

Is inequality making us sick?

The United States spends more on health care than any other industrialized nation and yet ranks 30th in the world in life expectancy and 31st in infant mortality. How do other countries manage to do better and spend less? Policies that mitigate inequality are the key, starting with universal access to health care.

When we talk about our dysfunctional health care system, we tend to fix on access issues. But lack of aspirin is not the reason people get headaches. For sure, access is a big, big problem, but dig deeper to the root of the health disparities in our society and you’ll find a lot of other issues clustered there.

The social determinants of health are the subject of an upcoming PBS documentary, Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? I had a chance to view the first episode in this four-part series that begins airing next week. I highly recommend it. The screening of Unnatural Causes that I attended was hosted by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. One of the nice things about living in Washington is there are countless events like this. It makes up for the many other liabilities.

New Lancet Series on Maternal and Child Undernutrition

A new Lancet series provides a critical update on maternal and child undernutrition. The four studies in the series describe global and regional trends in undernutrition, discuss impacts on health and human capital, provide evidence of nutrition interventions that work, and focuses special attention on the 20 countries with the greatest concentration of undernourished children. A fifth paper discusses the ever illusive lack of political will that hampers efforts to solve the problem of child and maternal undernutrition.

I must admit that I have not made it through all of the articles, but in the material I have read I have already been surprised with some new information. Specifically, the series reports that, along with Vitamin A, zinc is the micronutrient with the greatest contribution to disease burden. In Bread for the World Institute's 2006 Hunger report, Frontline Issues in Nutrition Assistance, we focused on Vitamin A, Iron and Iodine. But zinc is responsible for 500,000 childhood deaths each year. And like Vitamin A, it appears that zinc supplements are cheap and effective in reducing childhood morbidity and mortality.

The report was launched over at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The full presentation can be viewed here.