Health:

The health indicators listed below provide information on children’s and adolescents’ health status, immunization coverage, death rates, teenage pregnancies and births, and sexually transmitted diseases. Latino children have lower health insurance coverage, 73 percent compared with 91 percent for non-Latino whites and 84 percent for African Americans. Pregnancy rates among adolescent Latinos are higher than non-Latino whites and the total population, regardless of age. In 1996 pregnancy rates were more than twice as high among Latino teens as among non-Latino white teens.

Abortion rates and birth rates were also higher for Latinos compared with non-Latino whites. However, low-birth weight for infants born to adolescents is lower among Latinos than among non-Latino whites. This might be due to higher smoking rates present among young, non-Latino white-women. Latino adolescents, both male and female, had higher rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea than non-Latino. The proportion of adolescents with HIV is also higher among Latino male and female teens than among comparable non-Latino whites.

Source:
Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 1997.

MacKay AP, Fingerhut LA, Duran CR. Adolescent Health Chartbook. Health United States, 2000. Hyattsvill, MD: National Center
for Health and Statistics, 2000.

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