Voices of Child Health in Chicago Search Results

• Chicago Families and Safe Swimming in Lake Michigan

  As the weather becomes warmer in Chicago, families spend more time outside and many take the opportunity to swim. Lake Michigan is a treasured natural resource that provides Chicago families with water recreation activities such as beach days, swimming, boating and sailing. However, enjoying the lake comes with a need to attend to water safety...

• Parents’ and Children’s Concern About Mass Shootings

  Mass shootings have been a public health crisis for many years, increasing in frequency steadily since 1966. These events are defined as shootings that occur in a short time span (minutes to hours), in a public space, and include four or more victims. The increase in mass shootings over the last several decades has prompted preparatory actions...

• Unsafe Car Seat Practices in Chicago

  Car crashes remain a leading cause of death and severe injury for children 1 to 10 years old in the United States. Each year about 600 U.S. children in this age range die in car crashes, more than the number who die from homicide, suicide, heart disease, sepsis or influenza/ pneumonia. Thousands more are treated in emergency departments for...

• Gun Violence Exposure and Mental Health Impact Among Chicago Youth

  Exposure to gun violence has many negative effects on the health of youth. A policy brief from the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium reported that youth exposure to gun violence is consistently associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other internalizing symptoms, such as anxiety and depression. The National Alliance...

• Chicago Children Are Not Getting Enough Physical Activity

  Spending time outside and exercising may be top of mind for many Chicago families trying to soak up the last few weeks of summer sunshine and warm weather. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) emphasizes a variety of benefits to exercising and active play, as regular physical activity can help children and adolescents improve cardiorespiratory...

• Chicago Parents Are Still Dealing with Stress From the Ongoing Pandemic

  During the past two years, Chicago parents and families have faced new challenges and heightened levels of unpredictability due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the American Psychological Association’s Stress in America Survey of March 2021, 1 nearly half of parents (48%) said the level of stress in their life has increased compared with...

• Parental Concerns about Climate Change

  As Earth Day approaches on April 22, our April 2022 Voices of Child Health in Chicago report provides insight into Chicago parents’ concerns about climate change. Chicago experiences climate-related weather events as well as rising water levels, which have the potential to affect more than 1 million children living in the city. According to the...

• Update on Youth COVID-19 Vaccines in Chicago

  Public opinion about COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States is constantly changing, with experts relying on vaccines as the main line of defense against the ongoing pandemic. According to the City of Chicago’s COVID-19 Dashboard, as of February 2022, 69% of the population had completed the vaccine series. In Chicago, 41% of children 5–11...

• Infant Sleep Practices

  Sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) is the term used to describe the death of an infant who is less than 1 year old in which the cause of death was not obvious before investigation. SUID often occurs in the baby’s sleep area and includes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The most current data (2014–18) reveal that 42% of infant deaths are...

• Continuing Pandemic and Worsening Stress: Behavioral Health for Chicago’s Children

  As we approach the end of 2021, the second calendar year that the nation and world have grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic, we wanted to check in on the status of youth mental health in Chicago to provide an update to our March 2021 Voices of Child Health in Chicago report . Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, one in five U.S. children...

• Top 10 Social Concerns for Youth 2020

  Chicago youth have dealt with ongoing social challenges that have continued to shape their daily interactions and experiences over the past 20 months since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. To learn what social issues Chicago adults were most concerned about for youth in the city, we teamed up with the Chicago Department of Public Health...

• Parent Attitudes about COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates

  The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact families in Chicago and across the country, with a recent national poll showing that 86% of the general public say the pandemic isn’t yet over in the United States. One critical step in ending the pandemic is achieving high levels of vaccination against COVID- 19. In Chicago, over half (57%) of Chicago...

• Top 10 Youth (Non-COVID-19) Health Problems

  Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Chicago youth have dealt with new mental and physical health challenges over the past 18 months. Children and adolescents in Chicago continue to face many health challenges that existed before the pandemic, and that may be worsened by the pandemic. To learn what health issues besides COVID-19 Chicago adults were...

• Firearm Safety, Gun Violence and Chicago Families

  Chicago has seen continuing firearm violence , with over 2,000 shooting victims so far in 2021 . The epidemic of firearm violence impacts children across the state, as it remains the number one cause of death in children and youth across Illinois. In some of our previous reports , Chicago parents identified gun violence as their top social...

• Swimming and Water Safety For Chicago Families

  At the start of summer, many families look forward to enjoying the pool or beach. Tragically, water proves deadly for more than 925 children in the United States each year (CDC WISQARS) and Black (non-Latinx) youth experience drowning at rates five times higher than White (non-Latinx) youth. In addition, with the COVID-19 pandemic , drownings in...

• Everyday Experiences of Discrimination Among Chicago Parents

  Discrimination in general, and racism specifically, have profound negative effects on health, for adults and children alike. The impact of discrimination has come into sharp focus over the last year as the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the effects of systemic racism on health. Even before the pandemic, for the past two years, Chicago parents...