Tagged: Children's Health

Children's advocates say poverty continues to be a problem when it comes to kids' health. The non-profit Action for Children North Carolina is out with its annual Child Health Report Card. The state scored a D in child poverty, with more than 25% of children under 18 living in poverty. Action for Children's Laila Bell says that affects the health statistics.

Duke University doctors say clinical trials on how drugs affect children are few and far between. Gurnal Scott reports.

Doctors looked at research conducted from 2005 to 2010 -- about 60-thousand trials. They found that adult medical trials far outnumber ones on kids under 18.

"By about 10 to one," says one of the study's writers, Alex Kemper, a pediatrics professor at Duke. "For those of us who provide care to children, we know that clinical trials are the best way to know how to treat conditions.

A Chapel Hill non-profit has been recognized nationally for developing a program that targets childhood obesity while helping students learn.  The program is called “The Walking Classroom.”

Leoneda Inge:  The Walking Classroom Institute is about one year old and was started by former 5th grade teacher Laura Fenn.

Laura Fenn:  What I did is one day, when I was home after school, I went out for a walk and I was listening to a podcast while I was walking and I thought to myself, my students can do this.

Senator Kay Hagan toured UNC Children's Hospital yesterday as part of a push for her bill that would streamline approval of treatments for serious and rare diseases.

Hagan says the Food and Drug Administration needs to find faster ways to get treatments to patients suffering from rare diseases.

Two Pint-sized former patients cut the ribbon on a new unit in the Newborn Critical Care Center at The North Carolina Children's Hospital in Chapel Hill today. A crowd of parents, children and staff were present for the opening of 'Pod G.' It adds 10 beds and brings the center's capacity to 58 beds. The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Chapel Hill admits premature and ill babies from other hospitals in the state which are not equipped to deal with them. Chief of Pediatrics Dr. Alan Stiles says the addition will take pressure off the unit.