Colorado is making progress helping children get the care they need, including increasing immunization rates, but the state still has a long way to go, child advocates said today.
The Colorado Children’s Campaign said nearly one in three Colorado students will not graduate from high school if the state stays on its present course, and 14 percent – 180,000 children – don’t have health insurance.
“While Colorado prospers on many levels, including the education level and income of the overall state population, many of our children are not getting their basic needs met,” said Megal Ferland, president of the campaign.
She said the good news is that Colorado’s childhood immunization rates have gone up from last in the nation in 2002 to 16th in 2005, with 83 percent of children getting their shots. Also, the percentage of women smoking during pregnancy decreased four percentage points between 1995 and 2005, from 12 percent to 8 percent.
Overall, she gave the state a grade of “C.” Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien, who headed the organization before she was tapped to be Gov. Bill Ritter’s running mate last year, said she is still concerned about the low high school graduation rate, as well as the lack of full-day kindergarten for many children.
O’Brien said the report, which ranks each county on issues such as health care and education, is a good guide for making state policy.
For instance, when Weld County learned it had a problem providing prenatal care, it worked with other agencies and reduced the number of women not getting proper care from 9 percent to 5.8 percent between 2000 and 2004.
“That is a major success in health care,” O’Brien said.
