According to the newest Kids Count survey, the news is mixed for children living in South Dakota in 2013.

The new study from the Annie E. Casey Foundation ranked states in several different categories for child well-being.

South Dakota ranked 18th of the 50 states overall and the state improved in the economic and health categories, but declined in the education and family and community categories.

“I think our overall rank is good, though we did drop a little but, the ranking is still good,” said Carole Cochran of South Dakota Kids Count at the Beacom School of Business at USD. “I would like to see us continue to get better and raise into the top 10 eventually.”

Nebraska ranks eighth overall for child well-being and is fourth in economic well-being, 17th in education, 10th in health and 15th in family and community.

Child and teen deaths in South Dakota has dropped dramatically from 2005, when the state had 49 per 100,000 child and teen deaths. This year, that number is at 39.

“Even with that substantial drop, we still rank 48th in the nation in that category,” Cochran said. “So we’re still deeply concerned about that.”

No other state bordering South Dakota ranks that low in teenage and child deaths.

“You need to think that improving this number by 10 percent would mean nine fewer deaths,” she said. “The bulk of those deaths is from unintentional injuries, which includes car crashes, and that can have a big impact on the state.”

A youth and teenage driving task force was put together a few years ago that looked at all data and researched teenage driving in the state.

“This year, there were four bills submitted to the Legislature, and one ended up passing,” Cochran said. “The bill that passed bans teenagers under age 16 from using electronic devices while driving. Research has shown that distracted driving for teens is a big cause of collision and I think having a stronger driver education program would help impact that.”

She added that she hopes the three bills that were not passed during this legislative session are introduced again and get another review.

Despite the poor ranking in child and teen deaths, Cochran said South Dakota fares well in other categories.

“Something that bodes well for the state is that we rank third in economic well-being in the nation,” she said. “Also, teens not working and not in school also dropped from 6 percent in 2008 to 5 percent in 2011. This could be due to a policy change that mandates school attendance in the state up until age 18.”

The health domain ranking for South Dakota also rose from last year.

The state currently ranks 38th in the nation in the health categories, but improved in children without insurance and teens who abuse drugs or alcohol.

South Dakota did not experience any rank change for children in poverty.

“There are still one in five children here living in poverty, which has not changed since 2005,” Cochran said. “However, number-wise, we have 3,000 more children living in poverty today than we did in 2005.”

One thing Cochran said to keep an eye on is low birth weight babies in the state. Between 2005 and 2010, the number rose from 6.6 percent to 6.8 percent. Although she said this is a small number, it is still something to keep an eye on.

Cochran added that she is concerned about fourth graders not being proficient in reading. In 2005, 66 percent of fourth graders were not proficient, dropping to 64 percent in 2011.

New to the Kids Count study this year is the inclusion of more categories.

“I think it’s good that Kids Count changed the way they look at child well-being,” Cochran said. “They went from having 10 indicators to having 16 and then divided those indicators into four different domains. They did this because of increased data available related to child well-being. This allows us to tell which states are doing well and which are lagging behind.”

She added that she would like to see an improvement in more categories going forward, but it takes a team effort to make that possible.

“It takes an effort in communities to look at the indicators and see what we can do. Some things we can fix within our power but other times it takes a policy change or additional funding for different programs that the state has to look at,” Cochran said. “Relative to other states, we’re holding our own. I would have liked to see the overall rank improve, but we did improve on eight of the 16 indicators, with two unchanged. I would like to see improvements on all the categories next time.”

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