Latest news with #Americanchildren
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Children in the U.S. Are Dying at a Higher Rate than Kids in Similar Countries, Study Says
A new study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association suggested that American children are in worse health than their counterparts in other countries Babies are 1.78 times more likely to perish, and children aged 1 to 19 are 1.8 times more likely to die than those in comparable countries Author Dr. Chris Forrest pointed out that the worrying trends are like a "proverbial canary in the coal mine," pointing to a larger problem within AmericaA new study shed light on a worrying trend in the health of American children. In a Monday, July 7 study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), research suggested that American children are in worse health than those growing up in other developed countries. Additionally, they are progressively less healthy than they were in previous years. The study examined trends in the health of children between 2007 and 2023. It found that in the U.S., "children's health has deteriorated across a broad spectrum of indicators." Data and trends between 2007 and 2022 suggest that infants are 1.78 times more likely to die in the U.S. than in other countries of a similar standing. Children between the ages of 1 and 19 were also 1.8 times more likely to die than their counterparts in other countries. In the latter group, there was a marked difference in the likelihood of dying from "firearm-related incidents" and "motor vehicle crashes," with American children dramatically more likely to perish as a result of these avoidable tragedies. In perspective, this amounts to approximately 54 more children dying per day in America, per the study. The findings come after deaths in the U.S. were in line with other countries in the 1960s. The study also suggested that American children were 14% more likely to suffer a chronic condition than their counterparts. The likelihood of being diagnosed with a chronic condition also increased from 39.9% to 45.7% in America between 2011 and 2023. Examples of chronic issues that children are now battling include the likes of "depression, anxiety and loneliness increased, as did rates of autism, behavioral conduct problems, developmental delays, speech language disorders and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders." 'I think we all should be disturbed by this,' Dr. Chris Forrest, a professor of pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and director of the Applied Clinical Research Center, told CNN. 'Kids in this country are really suffering.' Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Speaking to the outlet, Forrest noted that he has seen a change in his patients since he started practicing medicine in the '90s. He attributed that to a variety of elements, saying that it comes together to create "a very toxic environment." While the Make America Healthy Again Commission, fronted by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy has targeted chemicals in food and elsewhere as a cause for America's worsening health, Forrest said that the problem runs much deeper. "It's not just the chemicals. It's not just the food and the iPhones. It's a much broader. It's much deeper. It's what we call the developmental ecosystem, and it makes it very challenging to change it,' Forrest told CNN. 'That's a hard answer for people who want a pithy message that tells them how to fix the issues. It's about where they're growing up, where they're going to school, they're playing, where their families live, their neighborhoods, and it's not just one population. It's the whole nation that needs help.' Another element that he highlighted was that "women are also suffering in this country," suggesting that children are being born into already sickening households. Citing the research, he said, 'This means the same kid born in this country is much more likely to die than if they were born in Germany or Denmark. Why are we allowing this to happen?' For Forrest, the research is comparable to "the proverbial canary in the coal mine." "When [children's] health is deteriorating, that means the foundation of our nation is also deteriorating," he concluded. Read the original article on People
New York Times
18-06-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Real Risk to Youth Mental Health Is ‘Addictive Use,' Not Screen Time Alone, Study Finds
As Americans scramble to respond to rising rates of suicidal behavior among youth, many policymakers have locked in on an alarming metric: the number of hours a day that American children spend glued to a glowing screen. But a study published on Wednesday in the medical journal JAMA, which followed more than 4,000 children across the country, arrived at a surprising conclusion: Longer screen time at age 10 was not associated with higher rates of suicidal behavior four years later. Instead, the authors found, the children at higher risk for suicidal behaviors were those who told researchers their use of technology had become 'addictive' — that they had trouble putting it down, or felt the need to use it more and more. Some children exhibited addictive behavior even if their screen time was relatively low, they said. The researchers found addictive behavior to be very common among children — especially in their use of mobile phones, where nearly half had high addictive use. By age 14, children with high or increasing addictive behavior were two to three times as likely as other children to have thoughts of suicide or to harm themselves, the study found. 'This is the first study to identify that addictive use is important, and is actually the root cause, instead of time,' said Yunyu Xiao, an assistant professor of psychiatry and population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College and the study's lead author. Addictive behavior may be more difficult to control during childhood, before the prefrontal cortex, which acts as a brake on impulsivity, is fully developed. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Reuters
30-05-2025
- General
- Reuters
Trump administration report on US child health cited nonexistent studies, media report says
May 29 (Reuters) - A U.S. government report on the health of American children cited scientific studies that did not exist to support its conclusions, according to a media report and some of the purported study authors on Thursday. The report produced by the Make America Healthy Again Commission, named after a movement aligned with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, was released last week. It said processed food, chemicals, stress and overprescription of medications and vaccines may be factors behind chronic illness in American children, citing some 500 research studies as evidence. Digital news outlet NOTUS reported the citation errors, saying on Thursday it found seven studies listed in the report's footnotes that did not exist, along with broken links and misstated conclusions. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters that any citation errors were due to "formatting issues." The government said it posted a corrected version of the report later on Thursday. "The substance of the MAHA report remains the same - a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic disease epidemic afflicting our nation's children," the Department of Health and Human Services said. Katherine Keyes, an epidemiology professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, was cited in the report as the author of "Changes in mental health and substance use among US adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic," which the report said was published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics. She said that neither she nor the named co-authors of the paper had written it. "It does make me concerned given that citation practices are an important part of conducting and reporting rigorous science," she said. Psychiatry Professor Robert L. Findling did not author the article cited in the report as "Direct-to-consumer advertising of psychotropic medications for youth: A growing concern" in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, according to a spokesperson for Virginia Commonwealth University, where Findling is a professor. Kennedy has spent decades sowing doubt about the safety of vaccines, raising concerns within the scientific and medical communities over the policies he would pursue as health secretary. Since taking the role, he has fired thousands of workers at federal health agencies and cut billions of dollars from U.S. biomedical research spending. The studies attributed to Findling and Keyes no longer appeared in the MAHA report on the White House website as of Thursday evening.
