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MAILING ADDRESS:
PO BOX 360943
Birmingham, AL 35236-0943

STREET ADDRESS:
12 Office Park Circle, Suite 115
Birmingham, Al 35223

PHONE:
800-543-7143
205-978-1000

FAX:
205-978-1019

The Need For Kid One

There is a place where a child is born into poverty every 38 minutes, and every 15 hours a baby dies before reaching his or her first birthday.

In this place, doctors and hospitals are so scarce that pregnant women and sick children must travel up to 30 miles to the nearest health clinic.

This place has no local bus service and as many as a quarter of all households have no car. Infant death rates during parts of the 1990’s surpassed those in Panama and Uruguay and the percentage of births to teenage mothers was higher than in Uganda and Indonesia.

This place is practically in your backyard – this place is rural Alabama.

In Alabama:
• Every 38 minutes a child in this state is born into poverty.
• Every week 9 newborns die due to lack of prenatal care.
• Every 15-hours a child dies before his or her first birthday.
• There are only two hospitals in the state that offer specialized pediatric care such as chemotherapy, radiation and dialysis.

With current funding levels, Kid One is reaching approximately 2% of eligible children in the state.

Facts about the Transportation Barrier in Alabama

A 2001 Study by the Children’s Health Fund (CHF) (link to study) found that inadequate transportation resources constitute a hidden barrier to access to medical care. The result is that children with manageable, chronic medical conditions get sick more often and children who need critical follow-up care after surgery or a major illness cannot get it.
• Circumstances where serious follow-up care is needed, such as chemotherapy, have been a problem for children without access to transportation.
• In rural areas, nearly 31 percent of families surveyed lived more than 10 miles from their physician, neighborhood clinic or hospital and more than seven percent lived between 25 and 50 miles away.
• Nine percent or between 3.5 and 4 million children in families with incomes of up to $50,000 miss essential doctors appointments due to a lack of transportation, regardless of whether they are insured or not.
• Roughly 21 percent or one in five children living in poverty lack appropriate access to care because they cannot get to a doctor’s office.
• Forty-seven percent or nearly half of all the survey respondents live in areas not served by public transportation; that figure climbs to 75 percent for rural residents.

The Birmingham News ran a series on Alabama’s Black Belt (BB county map) in 2002. The series reported that:

• In the Black Belt, doctors and hospitals are so scarce that pregnant women and sick children must travel up to 30 miles to the nearest health clinic.
• There is no local bus service and as many as a quarter of all households have no car.
• Black Belt residents are twice as likely to lack a car or phone as people elsewhere in the state, and almost twice as likely to live in a mobile home.

In a survey conducted by the Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES), Transportation Ranked 3rd out of 16 possible perceived barriers to accessing healthcare for Alabama’s Rural Poor. Number 1 was Cost of Care and Number 2 was Lack of Insurance.

Transportation consistently shows up as a barrier to accessing health care and other services, especially in rural areas. (Southern Institute on Children and Families, 1998)