News & Events | 30 July 2012 | Health, Education, & International Impact
Health
Annual Study Finds Child Education, Health Improving: The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual Kids Count report was released last week (full disclosure: Annie E. Casey is a Center funder). The Good News: on average, children are doing better on several measures of health and education, including better access to health insurance and modest improvements in math, reading, and on-time graduation rates. This good news is the more welcome given the bad news: with economic recovery still very slow, more children – 22% of children under 18 – are living in poverty, and there have been increases in households where neither parent has full time paid employment.
Want to talk about the economy? Try the economic burden of malnutrition: A new study tracking malnutrition from birth found the effects contribute to negative educational and occupational outcomes into adulthood. As more children are now living in poverty – as seen through Casey’s Kids Count report – with the potential to go hungry, the economic ramifications for those children and for our society could become even more severe.
AIDS experts: Focus on pregnant women not enough: Leaders at last week’s International Aids Conference urge addressing larger issues of poverty and sexual violence many women in the developing world face to stem growing infection rates among that group.
Education
Addressing Poverty in Schools: Joe Nocera of the New York Times writes about Turnaround Schools, a model designed specifically to deal with stress and mental health issues confronted by kids living in poverty – of which, as we know from the recent Kids Count release, there are an increasing number.
International Impact
Bollywood Star Remakes Himself Into TV Conscience: This New York Times article about Aamir Khan – one of Bollywood’s socially minded starts – shows how the positive influence of celebrity shining a light on social problems is not confined to the US.
Survey
The Rockefeller Foundation – Impact Enterprise Landscape 2012: For donor/investors supporting US-based for-profit entrepreneurs who are aiming to create social and environmental impact, our colleagues at Rockefeller Foundation, Duke, SJF, and Investors Circle want to better understand the needs of the entrepreneurs you’re backing.
