PRB conducts analysis to provide clear, objective information about children's well-being to decisionmakers and advocates so that they can create evidence-based policies that give children the opportunity to grow up healthy. Our work in the area of children and families includes:
Advancing Children's Well-Being
Partnership With KIDS COUNT
For more than a decade, PRB has provided analysis for the Annie E. Casey Foundation's KIDS COUNT Data Book, an annual report on the well-being of children and families in every state in the United States and for the nation as a whole.
PRB provides technical assistance, including data analysis, maps, and workshop training, to the foundation's KIDS COUNT network of child advocacy partners to help these organizations use data on children's well-being to communicate more effectively with state and local policymakers.
Data published in the annual KIDS COUNT report have helped promote the passage of several policies aimed at improving children's lives, including the State Children's Health Insurance Program and the expanded Earned Income Tax Credit.
Reducing Neonatal Mortality
Saving Newborn Lives Initiative
Two-thirds of all infant deaths occur in the first 28 days of life. In partnership with Save the Children and with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PRB created and disseminated five policy briefs designed to assist developing countries seeking ways to keep newborns safe during the critical first month after birth.
More than 60,000 copies of the Saving Newborn Lives policy briefs have been distributed to government officials, journalists, and health professionals. Many have commented on the importance of the series. "This initiative is absolutely fabulous and opportune, as some localities trying to reach good levels of infant mortality need to investigate neonatal and maternal health. The brief will be used to reduce the number of Caesarean births [and] raise the rates of prenatal appointments," noted a technical manager with the State Secretariat of Health in Rio Grande Do Soul, Brazil.