Kids Count Says Florida Falls In Overall Child Well-Being

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Volusia County, FL-State rankings have been released from the KIDS COUNT Data Center and Florida ranks 40th for children living in poverty. That's down three places from last year. In the state of Florida in 2014, there were 1.6 million children living in poverty.

Florida also fell nine spots to 47th place in overall children's health, despite the fact that there has been a 50 percent increase in the number of kids with health insurance since 2008.

Florida KIDS COUNT Director Norin Dollard said that 16 indicators and four categories are used to collect the data. She said the trend over time is that poverty is worse in Florida since 2008 and the end of the Great Recession.

Dollard said that the data is passed on to those that make decisions on children's issues. The data collection is funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Dollard said its purpose is to effect policy changes.

Dollard said that other states have done better in implementing policies that benefit children such as getting young children into school earlier and getting more children out of poverty.

The news is not bad in all areas. Dollard said more kids have graduated high school on time, there are fewer teen births, with rates down more than 40 percent since 2008 and the percentage of teens using drugs and alcohol fell by 14 percent.

Copyright Southern Stone Communications 2016.