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Utah Kids Count
These numbers are from a Utah Children news release.
On average every month in Utah in 1998:
- 21 infants died before their first birthday.
- 254 babies were born with low birth weight, or below 5 lbs. 8 oz.
- 22 youth between ages 1 and 19 died from all causes.
- 16 children died from violent causes, in other words, homicides, suicides, and accidents.
- 129 teens between the ages of 15 and 17 gave birth, of those 105 were births to single teens.
- Juveniles were involved in 131 cases of life-endangering felonies which were adjudicated to court.
- 737 children were abused or neglected.
Improvements:
- The death rate for children ages 1 to 19 dropped slightly from 1997 to 1998.
- Infant mortality continued a downward trend.
- The overall teen birth rate has declined over the last few years. It decreased slightly from 1997 to 1998. After 10 years of rising and then falling rates, the current rate now stands at the 1989 rate.
- The rate of substance abuse adjudications for juveniles is down, as well as the rate of drug related offenses and property crime offenses.
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Other indicators:
- The percentage of births receiving prenatal care in the first trimester continues to fall. This indicator has worsened every year since 1994.
- The number of babies born at low birth weight and very low birth weight continues to rise.
- The number of children abused or neglected rose for the second year in a row.
- The rate of domestic violence cases that went to court rose.
- The rate of adjudicated juvenile cases involving alcohol increased.
- The rate of chlamydia infection, a sexually transmitted disease, among teens has risen substantially (some of this rise may be due to improvements made in diagnostic techniques).
For more information go to:
Utahchildren.net
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