RIO RANCHO, N.M. – Childhood disparities around malnutrition, graduation rates, and early deaths are worst among rural, black-majority counties in the American South and isolated counties with Native American populations, according to a new report.
Those inequities put these populations more at risk for the novel coronavirus, the report by Save the Children concludes. “The Land of Inopportunity: Closing the Childhood Equity Gap for America’s Kids” report released Tuesday found that children in the most disadvantaged counties die at rates up to five times of children in the same state.
Children in those counties also are 14 times as likely to drop out of school and are three times as likely to lack healthy food and consistent meals, the