Our report card on children's health is out and it's good news: Aussie kids are getting healthier.
The AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) Children's Headline Indicator looks at 19 health, welfare and development indicators. They are high level, measureable indicators that identify the immediate environments as particularly important to children’s health, development and wellbeing. The CHI are presented from 2006 to 2016 and are grouped into 3 broad topic areas—Health, Early learning and care and Family and community.
Kid's health on the rise
Here are the health highlights:
- Infant mortality: down from 4.7 deaths to 3.1 per 1000 live births
- Teenage motherhood: down from 17.6 to 11.4 births per 1000
- Pregnant women smoking in first 20 weeks: down from 13% to 10%
Speaking about women who smoke while pregnancy, Dr Wendy Burton, chair of the RACGP Specific Interests Antenatal/Postnatal Care network, said more needed to be done.
"It is an ongoing challenge to have the community aware of the behaviours that put themselves or their children or their unborn children at risk," she said.
"It is a whole-of-community approach that we need. It is health literacy, it is pricing, it is awareness."
Literacy and numeracy
Australian kids also get an A+ in this category, with national literacy rates rising from 91% in 2008 to 94% in 2017. Numeracy also rose from 92.7% to 95.4%.
Family finances
Generally speaking, families are doing better financially. Disposable income rose from $449 in 2005 to $541 in 2015.
Fewer children now live with housing stress - with a decrease from 26% to 22%.
Room for improvement
While much of the report was glowing, there are some indicators that need improving. These include:
- Immunisations by age 2: fell from 92.5% to 90.5%
- Child abuse and neglect: increased from 7.5 children to 10 children per 1000
The report commented: "Although a real change in the incidence of abuse and neglect may contribute to the observed fluctuation, increased community awareness and changes to policy, practice and legislation in jurisdictions are also contributing factors."
Originally published on Mar 27, 2019
