A Child is a Child: A Snapshot of Children's Health in California

We honor and celebrate Native American Heritage Month by highlighting the health of the 346,000 American Indian, Alaska Native and Indigenous children and youth who currently live in our state. Over 300,000 early indigenous peoples lived across lands in what is now known as California before colonization. These diverse communities spoke approximately 100 distinct languages, and included, among other tribes: the Chumash, Serrano, Tongva, Cahuilla, Yoruk, Maidu, Mojave, Pomo, Miwok and Modoc. Despite the atrocities of colonization and genocide, American Indian communities are resilient and persist in California today. California is home to more Native American people than any other state in the country. Currently, there are close to 200 tribes in California, 110 of which are recognized by the U.S. federal government. Children who identify as American Indian in California come from communities of the original people of North, Central and South America. California is home to an estimated 170,000 indigenous people from the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Michoacán, including Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and Purépechas. 

We partnered with the California Consortium for Urban Indian Health (CCUIH) and United American Indian Involvement (UAII) to center data that focuses on providing a snapshot of Native American children and youth in California and some of the challenges they face impacting their success and healthy development. Inequities in health are rooted in historical oppression and trauma and systemic racism that continues to impact the well-being of American Indian, Alaska Native and Indigenous children in our state. The data presented in the fact sheet will inform our collective advocacy to advance child health equity for all children.

We are proud to honor Latine Heritage Month in partnership with the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, Latino Health Access, and Abriendo Puertas by highlighting the 4,616,456, or over half (52%), of California’s 9 million children who are Latine.

The 2024 A Child is a Child: Latine Children’s Health Snapshot can help advocates, policymakers, parents, guardians, teachers and others to better understand who California’s Latine children are and where systemic inequities exist.

Latine children and youth make up a large and diverse population in California. They and their families are resilient with a wealth of cultural and linguistic assets – half of our state’s Latine children are fully bilingual. Despite these strengths, they also face inequities in health care, food, housing and digital access.

Note: This fact sheet primarily presents data on Latine children as a whole because of the lack of publicly available, granular-level ethnic and racial data. One effort to collect and disaggregate detailed data for Latine and Indigenous Mesoamerican populations in California is a bill recently signed into law: SB 1016 (Gonzalez), the Latine and Indigenous Disparities Reduction Act, which requires California government agencies to collect and disaggregate data for Mesoamerican populations.

We celebrate the 4,013,000 children who are part of immigrant families in California, making up nearly half of our state’s 9 million children. We proudly partnered with the Children Thrive Action Network (CTAN) and the California Protecting Immigrant Families (CA-PIF) campaign to release an updated fact sheet in our A Child is a Child series spotlighting the health of children in immigrant families in our state.  

Children in immigrant families in California are a racially and ethnically diverse population who bring a wealth of cultural and linguistic assets to our state. While we acknowledge that health inequities that exist within the immigrant community are overlooked, the data presented in this fact sheet highlights some of the unique issues that children in immigrant families face in California that shape their health and well-being, including mental health, health coverage and access, economic well-being and more. The fact sheet also highlights protective factors – conditions or attributes that help mitigate or eliminate risks to health – that can support the lifelong success of children in immigrant families, including multilingualism, family cohesion and connection to heritage/culture.

We honor the health of over 20,000 LGBTQ+ children and teens that live in our state, 75 percent of whom also identify as Latine, Indigenous, Black, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander or mixed race. The fact sheet includes data that highlights COVID-19, racism, child welfare, food and housing insecurity, child welfare and juvenile justice. Our state must focus on this population and address the health inequities they face and their underlying causes. It is our hope that advocates, policy-makers, parents, guardians, teachers and others use this fact sheet to better understand where systemic inequities exist in order to be stronger allies to the LGBTQ+ youth that live in our state.

We also acknowledge that we must continue to urge California to do more to collect data specific to LGBTQ+ children, youth and young adults to more fully understand the structural disadvantages and inequities that impact the health of LGBTQ+ youth. With accurate data, programs and policies can be put in place to improve the chances for LGBTQ+ youth to have every opportunity to live healthy, safe and successful lives as youth and as adults.

In celebration of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we are proud to partner with Asian Resources, Inc. and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Data Policy Lab at UCLA Center for Health Policy Research to release two data snapshots in our A Child is a Child series spotlighting Asian American (AA) and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) children in California.

Health inequities that exist between and within the AA and NHPI communities are overlooked at least in part because much of the data on these racially and ethnically diverse populations are aggregated, leading to a masking of differences and hidden health disparities between racial and ethnic subgroups. We separated the Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander fact sheets into two separate fact sheets. Where possible, we used disaggregated data focused on each community separately. 

The data presented in these fact sheets highlight strengths and assets, as well as some of the barriers that AA and NHPI children and youth and families face in California that shape their health and well-being on issues including COVID-19, mental health, health coverage, language access, hate and discrimination, economic well-being and more.