Teen deaths are not easy to talk about, especially violent and unexpected deaths. But in order to stop preventable teen deaths, we need to examine and understand the data. For a long time, accidents, homicides and suicides have been the leading causes of teen deaths in the United States, in that particular order. A different picture emerges when you break out the data by race and ethnicity, though. In 2014, 7 percent of the deaths of [...]
As child advocates, we want to help make sure families enrolled in Medicaid are aware they need to keep their addresses up to date with the Department for Medicaid Services (DMS). If a family's address has recently changed, they must update their address with DMS by August 18th. If DMS receives any returned mail from an address that is not current, members could lose health coverage. If an address appears incorrect, the member will have the remainder of [...]
By Paula Little What do you want your child to be when he or she grows up? For concerned parents and community leaders in Clinton County, the overwhelming answer to that question has nothing to do with a career choice or monetary success. They say, “We want our children to be healthy.” You see, Clinton County has extremely high rates of obesity -- along with the chronic diseases, poor quality of life, and early mortality [...]
By Abbey Rogers With 80% of learning occurring through a child’s eyesight, accessing preventative vision care and treatment is important for proper child development. Did you know there are specific vision services through Medicaid that have the potential to increase a child’s eye care services? Under the Early Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment Services (EPSDT) benefit package, children eligible for Medicaid can receive annual vision and hearing examinations, as well as corrective lenses until they are [...]
Photo courtesy of KET Kentucky Educational Television (KET) recently featured the Health Three60 episode, “The Hidden Life of Your Mouth.” The episode focused on poor oral health as a gateway to systemic health problems, successful school-based prevention programs, and how oral health impacts quality of life and employment. Review highlights and watch the full episode below. Dr. Julie McKee, Kentucky’s state dental director, and Dr. Steve Wrightson, Medical Director of Bluegrass Community Health [...]
This week, the New York Times featured an article from Warren Berger, the author of the wonderful book "A More Beautiful Question." Berger reminded organizations of the power of asking, “Why?” and “What If?” Two weeks ago you read about the data side of the recently released 2016 National Kids Count Data Book. This week I’d like to apply Berger’s interrogatives to that data. WHY does child poverty get ignored in the political chatter in Frankfort? And [...]
We at Kentucky Youth Advocates are asking, "Is it good for kids?" while trying to understand the proposal by the Bevin Administration to transform Kentucky's Medicaid program. From our perspective, we see some positives but also have some concerns. Children and pregnant women are protected from the potential negative impacts that premiums and reduced benefit packages could have, and we thank Governor Bevin for considering those vulnerable Kentuckians. But we are concerned with the impact [...]
It could never happen to me. It could never happen to my family. It could never happen to my kids. So many times, we recite these lines in our head, even subconsciously. That is, until it does happen to you, your kids, or your family. We take for granted many things that we think our loved ones will simply “do” in order to keep themselves safe. With June being National Safety Month, it’s time to [...]
This week, we co-released with the Annie E. Casey Foundation the national 2016 KIDS COUNT Data Book. We get pretty excited about this release because the Data Book provides the best assessment of how Kentucky’s children and youth are faring in comparison to those across the nation. Let’s face it, we live in a very competitive state – think basketball and horse racing – so we eagerly await the Data Book to see if Kentucky [...]
There’s a piece of me that continues to be jealous of my teenagers’ summer break. We have embarked upon our third week of summer, and the idealistic images I had of what their summers days would include while I’m at work have already dissipated. My rough survey of a few teens in my children’s “circle” led me to these top three “activities” on their daily to-do list: They want to sleep – a LOT. Apparently [...]
