The Rural Information Gap: Public Data Sources Lacking on Rural Young Children

DEC. 5, 2004 | Most national surveys and other public data sources yield little information about rural young children and their families, typically because of the challenges in collecting samples large enough from remote and far-flung communities, according to a new report from the National Center for Rural Early Childhood Learning Initiatives.

Read the report here.

The authors of the Rural Early Childhood Report, “Young Children and the Rural Information Gap: The Weaknesses of Major Data Sources for Examining The Well-Being of Rural Children,” also point to confidentiality rules that screen much rural data from researchers because of the relative ease with which individual survey respondents in rural areas could be identified.

The authors identify public sources for 62 different indicators of child well-being such as participation in family literacy activities, child maltreatment, and hunger.

They also provide a detailed comparison of rurality measures in major public data sources including the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, American Housing Survey, Current Population Survey (Annual Social and Economic March Supplement), 1990 Census and Census 2000, HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, National Health Interview Survey, National Household Education Survey, National Occupant Protection Use Survey, National Immunization Survey, and National Vital Statistics System.

The authors suggest that child advocates encourage state and federal agencies, such as the U.S. Census Bureau, that conduct large-scale surveys to produce reports specifically about rural young children and families, so the strengths and needs of rural communities can be better understood. They also propose that surveys like the Current Population Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation be augmented to include more child well-being indicators and larger rural samples.

The National Center for Rural Early Childhood Learning Initiatives, known as Rural Early Childhood, commissioned the report by Jeffrey Capizzano and Alexandra Fiorillo of the Urban Institute, a private research center based in Washington, D.C.

Rural Early Childhood is a program of Mississippi State University with funding from the U.S. Department of Education.

  
 

Updated 12/01/2006