Tagged: Children's Health

A new University of Michigan study finds most parents are hesitant to insist their young children use booster seats when they carpool.  

Public service announcements remind us that children between 4 and 8 years old,  under 4 feet 9 inches tall, must be in a booster seat when riding in a car.    But that message is not convincing most parents to insist on a booster seat when their kids carpool with other children.

“More than 60 percent of parents of 4 to 8 year olds are carpooling," says Michelle Macy, M.D., M.S., a clinical lecturer of emergency medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School and a pediatrician at U-M C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. 

I started listening to the state of the union address last night, which I thought was one of President Obama’s better speeches.

But I lost my concentration some distance into the speech, when the president was talking about fairness. He said, “Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay as least as much as his secretary in taxes?

“Most Americans would call that common sense.” he added. That got me thinking about two very different news stories in Michigan yesterday. The Michigan League for Human Services released its annual “Kids Count” report, which chronicles how children, especially poor children, are doing in our state.

Twice as many children die in car-pedestrian accidents on Halloween than on an average day the rest of the year. That’s according to the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.   

Michelle Macy is a clinical lecturer of emergency medicine at the U-M Medical School. She says adults should be more cautious than usual when taking young children trick or treating in busy neighborhoods. 

"While they’re in elementary school, kids don’t have the ability to judge the distance that a car is or the speed that it’s approaching at…they need to be told to wait and stop and let the cars go past before they try to run out ahead of it," said Macy.   

Macy urges parents to make sure their children dress in costumes that don’t restrict their vision this Halloween.

A new poll from the University of Michigan shows parents have a growing concern about childhood obesity and illegal drug use.    The University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital has been asking parents for five years what’s their greatest health concern when it comes to their children.   

Obesity has topped the list since it started.  But this year illegal drug use tied for the top spot.

 Matt Davis is an associate professor at the U of M Medical School.     He says parents want solutions to obesity and drug use. 

The largest long-term children’s health study in United States history has launched in Michigan.
 
Wayne County is the Michigan county participating in the National Children’s Study. Genesee, Grand Traverse, Lenawee and Macomb will also join over the next several years.
 
The study aims to document how social and environmental factors affect children’s health.
 
Dr. Nigel Paneth, principal investigator of the Michigan Alliance for the National Children’s Study, says the study will look at childhood medical conditions including cerebral palsy, autism and asthma. But he says the study’s goal isn’t to find cures for those diseases.