These shifts show an increase in income disparity among children. Children under age 6 living in female-householder families are particularly at risk for living in poverty. The number of children who had no health insurance at any time during 1996 grew to 10.6 million or 15 percent of all children from the 1995 levels of 9.8 million and 14 percent, respectively. Most children in the United States are healthy. In 1995, about 81 percent of children were reported by their parents to be in very good or excellent health, and this percentage remained stable between 1984 and 1995.
Child health varies by poverty status.
In 1995, about 65 percent of children in families below the poverty line were in very good or excellent health, compared with 85 percent of children in families living at or above the poverty line. In 1996, low birthweight rates were the highest in two decades. However, despite the frequency of low birthweight, infant mortality continues to decline, primarily because the likelihood for the highest-risk infants to survive has improved substantially. Black infants continue to be at much higher risk of low birthweight and infant mortality than infants of other races. Death rates among adolescents ages 15 to 19 are on the decline after increasing during the late 1980s and early 1990s.