By Sarah Willets
The Robesonian
LUMBERTON — According to information released by NC Child, a baby born in Robeson County has an average lifespan four years shorter than the average baby born in North Carolina.
Laila A. Bell, director of research and data at NC Child, says that can be prevented.
“We know that smart public policy decisions can help enhance local efforts to ensure all children in North Carolina live in homes and communities that promote their health and development,” Bell said in a statement.
Bell crunched information on social, economic and health outcomes to create data cards on each county that supplement the North Carolina Child Health Report Card, released each year by NC Child, a statewide organization that advocates for children’s health.
The data suggests that poverty and a lack of insurance contribute to a shorter life expectancy. According to NC Child, poverty has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, obesity and developmental delays. Without insurance, children may not receive the treatment they need.
“If you look at the issues poor health matches poor economy which matches poor education. They’re all intertwined,” said Bill Smith, director of the Robeson County Health Department.
According to Robeson County’s snapshot, 44 percent of children live in poverty and one in 13 Robeson County children are uninsured.
In Robeson County, 34 percent — 12,110 children — are considered to be “food insecure,” meaning they live in households that struggle to provide nutritious food for the whole family. Statewide, an estimated 6.1 percent of children are said to be “food insecure.”
Locally, one in 11 babies are born to a mother who received very late or no prenatal care and one in eight are born at a low birth weight, putting them at risk for health complications. Robeson County also sees about 2.6 times as many asthma-related hospital visits than the state as a whole for children 14 and under, the data says.
“The No. 1 indicator on poor birth outcomes is smoking and you still have 19 percent of women who are pregnant and still smoking. They got the message and they still haven’t quit,” Smith said, referring to NC Child data.
While a child in Robeson County is expected to live to 74.2 years old, a child born today in Wake County has life expectancy of 81.7 years — the highest life expectancy in the state. On average, a baby born in North Carolina is expected to live 78.3 years.
“Across indicators we see that a distance of fewer than 100 miles can mean the difference between positive or negative outcomes in children’s lives, a fact that simply cannot be explained by random chance or genetic predisposition,” Bell said in the statement. “These geographic disparities are a stark reminder of the profound impact the environments where our children live, play and go to school have on their long-term health opportunities.”
According to NC Child, children in Watauga County have a life expectancy of 81 years, on par with Japan, where residents have the longest life expectancy of any major country. Eighty miles east, Surry County children have a life expectancy of 73 years, on par with Cambodia.
NC Child suggests that to improve the health of children, North Carolina should expand Medicaid to cover more people living in poverty in order to give more women of reproductive age access to health care, support infant mortality prevention strategies like the Healthy Babies Bundle, and invest in early intervention services.