Just over half of all children in California are Latino -- that's more than 4.7 million kids under age 18. In a major new analysis, researchers found a diverse picture of their health and well-being, not just when compared against white children, but also within the Latino population itself.
More than 94 percent of California's Latino children were born in the U.S., and most of them were born in California.
Fewer Latino children overall achieve a minimum standard of basic health care or family and community environment when compared against white children, and children in households where Spanish is spoken at home have even lower rates.
Still, most parents of these children report that their children are in "good" or "excellent" health.
The study was commissioned by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health in Palo Alto and was conducted by the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative based at Johns Hopkins University.