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The Health Resources and Services Administration’s Maternal
and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) is pleased to present Child Health
USA 2004, the 15th annual report on the health status and service
needs of America’s children. To assess the Bureau’s
progress toward achieving its vision for a nation where all individuals
enjoy equal access to quality health care in a supportive, culturally
competent, family and community setting, MCHB has compiled this
book of secondary data for 55 health and health care indicators.
It provides both graphical and textual summaries of data and addresses
long-term trends where applicable.
All of the data discussed here came from the same sources as the
information in the graphs (unless noted otherwise). Data are presented
for the target populations of Title V funding: infants, children,
adolescents, children with special health care needs, and women
of childbearing age. In addition to population characteristics,
this book also addresses health status and health services utilization.
Child Health USA 2004 also provides insight into the nation’s
progress toward the goals set out in the MCHB’s strategic
plan — to assure quality of care, to eliminate barriers and
health disparities, and to improve the health infrastructure and
system.
Child Health USA is published to provide the most current
data available for public health professionals and other individuals
in the private and public sectors. The book’s succinct format
is intended to facilitate the use of the information as a snapshot
of measures of children’s health in the U.S.
The first section, Population
Characteristics, presents statistics on factors that influence
the well-being of children. The second section, entitled Health
Status, contains vital statistics and health behavior
information for infants, children, adolescents, and women of childbearing
age. The third section, Health
Services Financing and Utilization, contains data regarding
health care financing and newly implemented health policies. The
fourth and fifth sections, State
Data and City
Data, contain information on selected indicators at the
State and city levels.
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