Let’s break down the barriers
that stand in the way of our kids’
Health & Safety.
Access to Insurance & Care
While DC does a better job than many states of providing health support, there are still big gaps in health care access.
- Approximately 7 out of 10 children are covered by Medicaid or DC Healthy Families or the Immigrant Children’s Program, but coverage isn’t always continuous. 11% of Black children, 8% of Latine, and 2% of white children had periods without health insurance coverage in the year prior according to the 2023-2024 National Survey of Child Health.
- Approximately 16% of Black children didn’t have a preventative care visit in the past year, versus just 4% of white children and 14% of Latine children.
- Home visiting is a way of delivering prevention and early intervention services for expecting parents and families of young children. DC home visiting programs impacted more than 3,025 parents and children in 2024.
Preventative Care Visits for DC Children
Children with Private Health Insurance Only
Children with Public Health Insurance Only
Check-Up in the Last Year (2023-24 National Survey of Child Health)
Race & Equity
DC Children and Youth in Each Group Who Are Covered by Medicaid (2018)
71%
8%
51%
Adolescent Health
Many disparities exist in adolescent health outcomes.
- Black middle and high school students are more than three times as likely to have attempted suicide as white middle and high school students according to the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
- Middle school girls of color have particularly high rates – more than one out of six female Black and Latina middle school students reported having attempted suicide.
- One area where DC has reduced the challenges facing teenagers is teen birth rates. The number of births to 15-19 year-olds fell from a high of 1,083 in 2008 to 250 in 2024.
DC Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students are More at Risk for Suicide
Nutrition
While more District children benefited from SNAP during the public health emergency, keeping kids fed requires ongoing support.
- Nearly two out of five DC children received SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) at the peak of the public health emergency, a striking increase from 2019. Now that the federal benefits are reduced, the District should take steps to ensure that children who need nutrition support still get it.
- 86% of the DC households receiving SNAP are Black and 2% are Latinx. See Early Childhood for information on WIC (Supplemental Nutrition for Women, Infants, and Children).
- While the District has made progress, there are gaps in grocery access where many children live. Only seven full-service grocery stores service wards 7 and 8, where 36% of DC children live. Each store serves at least twice the number of residents as those in any other ward of the District except Ward 5.Â
DC SNAP Enrollment
DC Households Participating in SNAP (2024)
Race & Equity
DC COVID-19 Deaths by Race (November 2022)
73%
14%
11%
Policing
Concerns about over-policing youth are born out in the stops, searches, use of force, and arrests data.
- Black youth under 18 were stopped at nearly 14 times the rate of their white peers in 2024.
- Police also searched Black youth under 18 far more often than they did white youth: 785 compared to just 2.
- Police were also far more likely to use force with Black children than white children: nearly all (176 out of 181) of the use-of-force incidents with children under the age of 18 in 2024 were with Black children. In nearly a quarter of these incidents the police pointed a firearm at the child.
8 out of 10 Children Stopped by Police are Black
Percent of Youth Under 18 Subjected to DC Metropolitan Police Department Stops (2024)
Find more information about all the demographic measures in our data references section and visit our appendix to download a table with the full DC KIDS COUNT 2026 data set.