Current estimates indicate that the 2006 through 2008 three-year average of uninsured children in North Dakota is 8.7 percent (approximately 13,000 children), which is roughly equivalent to the seating capacity for football games at the Alerus Center in Grand Forks.

This month’s “Economic Brief,” a monthly publication from the North Dakota State Data Center at North Dakota State University, focuses on those children ages 0 to 17 without health insurance in the state. The Current Population Survey’s (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC), a joint project by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, provides annual estimates of the number of people with and without health insurance by selected characteristics.

The joint CPS ASEC project is designed to collect statistically reliable estimates primarily at the national level. Because state estimates are less reliable due to the relatively small sample sizes, which can cause state estimates to fluctuate widely year to year, the Census Bureau recommends using three-year averages to compare estimates across states and two-year averages to evaluate changes in state estimates through time.

Although confidence intervals around the estimates can be relatively large for states such as North Dakota, CPS statistics are one way of estimating the number of children at risk.

Three-year averages from the 2006 through 2008 CPS ASEC project indicate that while the majority of North Dakota children have health insurance coverage, 8.7 percent of the state’s children had no form of health insurance.

Nationally, 10.9 percent of children were without health insurance coverage. Comparisons of all states using three-year average uninsured rates for 2006 through 2008 show that Texas had the highest proportion of uninsured children in the nation at 20.2 percent, while Massachusetts had the lowest at 4.5 percent.

“When examining the two-year averages between 2006 through 2007 and 2007 through 2008 for North Dakota, it initially appears that we reduced the proportion of uninsured children in our state by more than a percentage point,” says Richard Rathge, State Data Center director. “This may reflect our relatively strong economy in the western part of North Dakota due to energy development activity. However, because of small sample size, this amount of change is not statistically significant. This means that the difference in the two periods may be the result of the sample rather than a true representation of the state.”

In addition to the nation overall, only six states had a statistically significant change in the proportion of uninsured children. California, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Texas, Utah and the U.S. overall showed a decrease in the proportion of uninsured youth.

NDSU Agriculture Communication