COLUMBUS – A new report concludes things have gotten worse over the last 15 years for the 450,000 children who live in Ohio’s 32 Appalachian counties.
The Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio says, since it released its ground-breaking report on child well-being in the region in 2000, poverty grew from about 17 percent to 26 percent (see chart) and that the 12 counties with the highest rates of child poverty in Ohio are all located in the southern southeastern part of the state, executive director Renuka Mayadev said.
“In 2000, we had about 9 counties with unemployment rates higher than 7 percent. Today we have more than half. In fact, 18 counties of the 32 have more than a 7 percent unemployment rate,” she said.
There are health concerns as well, with shortages of dentists and primary-care physicians in many of the counties, Mayadev said.
One in six Ohio children live in the Appalachian region, where the report found a higher percentage of babies born at a low birth weight or drug-exposed compared with the rest of the state.
“Their values of hard work, close-knit families, personal relationships are ones for us to celebrate,” Mayadev says of the people of the area. “And we really need to leverage those regional assets to finding ways to help the children in the region reach a successful adulthood.”
The report noted that although they graduate at the same rate as other Ohio students, Appalachian students are more likely to need to take remedial “make-up” classes in college.
Fewer adults have college degrees, in part because those with degrees move away for better opportunities, Mayadev said.
Among the recommendations in the report: expansion of summer food programs, integrating community health-care workers into community health systems, and enhanced smoking-cessation programs to improve birth outcomes.