The situation of children in the United States shows slight signs of improvement from 2000 to 2006, according to a recent report released this week by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a private foundation founded in 1948 by Jim Casey in his mother’s honor. A few things on the foundation’s agenda are to foster public policies, reforms and community supports that meet the needs of vulnerable children and families.

The report called “2008 Kids Count Data Book” compiled information on child well-being and ranked states according to 10 factors.

Overall, the report found that the child death rate has improved four percent; the number of high school dropouts was 31 percent better, the teen death rate improved by four percent; the teens not attending school and not working improved by eight percent and the teen birth rate was 18 percent better.

On the other hand, the report found that the number of children living in poverty has increased by 1 million from 2000 to 2006, according to the report’s author Laura Beavers, who said families are still struggling economically. Poverty, especially in the early years of life ages 1 to 3 can have a significant impact on cognitive development and academic performance.

The report also found that babies born underweight (meaning at less than 5.5 pounds) are still one of the major problems for the U.S., as they face an increased risk of death during the first year of life and long-term disabilities.

One reason for this increased rate in low-birth-weight babies was due to a rise in multiple births as more older women use fertility treatments to conceive. However, the birth-weight problem also has been worsening for single-baby deliveries as well.

Other factors influencing the birth weight were the mother’s overall health at the time of pregnancy and her access to good prenatal care. And of course, the increase in underweight newborns was closely linked to a rise in premature births.

Overall, the rate of low-weight births is sharply higher for blacks (13.6 percent) than for whites (7.3 percent or Hispanics (6.9 percent).

Other problems surfacing the report included a rise in children living with parents who have no jobs or single-parent children. These situations equaled with the worst infant mortality rates.

As for what U.S. states scored better or lower in child well-being, the report found that New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Utah and Connecticut topped the list with best rankings, while Alabama, New Mexico, Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina were at the bottom of the list with the lowest scores of all.

Overall, the U.S. still has to deal with many issues in order to improve child well-being according to a recent report of UNICEF. The organization ranked the U.S. the second worst among all 33 industrialized nations in overall child well-being, which is no reason of pride.

These findings underline once again the need of making serious changes in order to improve families’ lives in the U.S. Let’s not forget that children facing problems today represent the society of tomorrow. The way they develop and they are helped to develop today will have major impacts on the nation’s future.