7 Things You May Not Know about Our Area’s Children

The Promise to improve the health of every child in our region extends past the medical walls of Cook Children’s Medical Center.

On Wednesday, Oct. 17, experts from Cook Children’s gathered at the Regional Child Health Summit to look at 2018 data and trends from more than 8,000 parents who participated in a survey. People from Tarrant, Denton, Parker, Johnson, Hood and Wise Counties participated in the latest Community-wide Children’s Health & Assessment Planning Survey (CCHAPS).

The purpose of the summit was to look at key children’s health priorities in the region and discuss potential area for community action to improve children’s health with the experts in the room.

During the course of the day, several important topics were discussed. Here are some of the highlights.

1. Play time with other children

• 82 percent of the children in our region play with other children every other day or every day, but there is a decrease in daily play from 2015 (from 71 percent to 63 percent.

2. School safety

• 92 percent across the region report children are safe at school. This is lower than the national rate (98%) and the state rate (97%).

3. Children and health care.

• Children in our region are more likely to have a primary physician than children statewide or nationally – even our homeless children. Between 85 – 98 percent of children in this region have a primary care doctor; compared to 65 percent statewide and 73 percent nationwide.
• 10 percent of children in our region, were without health care at some time in the last 12 months. That’s lower that the state average (15%), but slightly higher than nationwide (8%)

4. School Days Missed

• Children in our region are more likely to miss school than the state and national rates reflect and they are more likely to miss more days annually than statewide and national rates reflect.
• 65 percent of our children miss between 1 and 6 days of school per year due to illness or health problems.

5. Mental Health Disorders

• The most common mental health disorder among children in the area is sleep problems, followed by self-esteem, overeating or undereating, traumatic events, wetting the bed and negative or obsessive thoughts.

6. Bullying

• The number of children in our region bullied or teased at school decreased in 2018 from 17percent to 13 percent. Still the number of kids impacted is large with an estimated 93,655 children.

7. Abuse and Neglect

• Except for Denton, the rate all of the CCHAPS region counties is higher than the statewide rate for all three years. The Denton County rate of confirmed child abuse and neglect victims is half of the statewide rate (4.3 percent vs. 8.5). The Hood County rate is more than two and a half times the statewide rate (23.2 vs. 8.5) [Source: Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Data Book. (2016).]

To learn more about the CCHAPS survey and findings, click here.