WalletHub: Arizona considered one of the worst in terms of child healthcare
Apr 19, 2018, 6:19 PM
(AP Photo/Toby Talbot)
(AP Photo/Toby Talbot)
PHOENIX — In terms of child healthcare, Arizona is considered one of the worst states in the country.
According to WalletHub, a number of children are without proper healthcare.
“We looked at, one, the access to healthcare, how many children are insured, have enough seen doctors in the past year or have they been prevented because of cost,” WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez said. “We also looked at kids’ nutrition, physical activity and obesity rates and finally we looked at kids’ oral health.
“Arizona has a pretty high percentage of uninsured children just crossing the 10-percent mark. Usually that’s definitely within the single digits, anywhere from two to five percent, so Arizona is obviously about double that rate.”
Out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, Arizona came in at 48th for uninsured children.
Compared to other states, Arizona’s only doing slightly better than Texas, Nevada and Alaska in terms of its uninsured children population, Gonzalez said.
Unsurprisingly, not many of Arizona children are in excellent or very good health ranges and there is a higher child death rate in the state as well due to the lack of healthcare, Gonzalez added.
Arizona landed at No. 45 for children in excellent or very good health.
WalletHub dived into Arizona’s oral health records as well.
Out of the data collected, Arizona is 44th for children with excellent or very good teach.
“We also looked at kid’s oral health — I think that tends to be more looked at for kids than adults right now — and these numbers are not too good either,” Gonzalez said.
“First of all, Arizona has no state oral health plan and I think that’s why we are seeing lower numbers here really throughout the state. There’s a high percentage of children who have either poor or very poor teeth condition, we have that number right around 20 percent, and we also see that there’s a lot of children — anyone below the age of 18 — without recent medical or dental checkups.”
But while Arizona falls near the bottom in terms of healthcare, its infant mortality rate is one of the best in the country.
“The infant death rate in Arizona — and I think this speaks more its public hospital system — is very low, one of the lowest in the country so we see that it’s not the problem when it comes to mothering, when it comes to having babies,” Gonzalez said. “But once these kids are growing up, a lot of them unfortunately are not insured and that’s where all these problems start to happen.”
