| ■ U.S. and Britain at Bottom of U.N. Ranking of Child Well-Being | 07.02.19 |
| The United States and Great Britain were ranked second to last and last, respectively, in a UNICEF report released Wednesday that looked at the well-being of children in 21 industrialized countries, the Associated Press reported. Countries at the top of the list were European nations with strong social welfare systems -- the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The rankings were based on six measures: material well-being, health and safety, education, peer and family relationships, behaviors and risks, and youngsters' own subjective sense of well-being, the AP reported. In the health and safety category, the United States came last. That category looks at rates of infant death, low birth weight, immunization, and deaths from accidents and injuries. The fact that the United States and Britain were ranked below countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary shows that a nation's overall wealth alone does not guarantee a child's well-being, the report authors said. ----- |