Utah ranks 3rd in kids' well-being

Utah, a state that promotes the notion that children are No. 1, ranks No. 3 nationwide in a state-by-state status report on the well-being of kids.

The state ranks in the top 10 on seven of 10 measures of how children are doing, according to the 2009 Kids Count data book released Tuesday. Utah is first in both the percentage of children living in families where no parent had full-time, year-round employment and in the share of children in single-parent families.

Utah ranks fourth in both the infant-mortality and child-poverty rates, compared with other states. It is seventh in the percentage of 16- to 19-year-olds who were not in school and not working; eighth in the percent of low-birthweight babies and ninth in the teen death rate, according to 20th annual accounting conducted by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Because of the lag time between data gathering and publication, the poverty measures do not represent the negative effects of the economic downturn that began in 2007 and got serious in 2008, the report's authors state in summing up the findings in the data book.

Utah data on children in poverty will be released in September by Voices for Utah Children, said Terry Haven, Kids Count director for the child-advocacy and research nonprofit based in Salt Lake.

According to the new data book, a downward trend in Utah's teen birth rate in the first half of the decade has jumped by 3 percent, with a rate of 34 births per 1,000 females ages 15 to 19.

Utah is among 41 states nationwide that report an increase in teen birth rates, what Laura Beavers, national Kids Count project coordinator, called a "truly disturbing shift," given that improvements were made in six of the 10 child-welfare indicators.

Many of the indicators of child well-being show very little change from year to year, Haven said. However, teen pregnancies and its leading statistical correlate, chlamydia infection rates, are showing "troubling trends."

In Utah, where births are tracked for girls ages 15 to 17, the rate is up for the third year in a row, despite ongoing public education campaigns on the adverse effects and life-changing consequences of teen sexual activity.

Between 2004 and 2007, the Utah teen birth rate increased by 26 percent.