Last month, St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame released a Report on the Status of Girls in Indiana 2013. This Report can provide valuable information to non-profits serving girls to help shape programming efforts to provide additional positive outcomes. The goal of this report is to highlight the status of girls between the ages of 10 and 19 years old.
Data specific to girls in the report has been pulled from many sources, including various state and federal government agencies and non-profit organizations, with the intent of centralizing and summarizing available information regarding girls in Indiana. Some key data in the report include:
- Population: Indiana’s girls are not as diverse as U.S. girls overall (80 percent of Indiana’s girls are white). Despite the relatively small populations within minority groups in Indiana, the minority populations were the main force behind the increase in the state’s total child population.
- Education: While Indiana’s girls are more likely to graduate and sit for AP exams than Indiana boys, boys tended to receive higher scores than their female peers. Indiana’s girls were more likely to graduate than their male peers: 91% of girls graduated compared to 86% of male students.
- Physical Health: Indiana’s high school girls were more likely to be overweight than the U.S. average and a significantly larger percentage of Indiana’s high school girls were more overweight than high school boys.
- Media Usage: Indiana’s high school girls reported watching television significantly less than girls nationwide. Data shows that girls are more likely than boys to use the Internet for socializing purposes.
- Reproductive Health: In Indiana’s high schools, roughly 51 percent of girls in grades 9-12 in 2011 admitted to having sexual intercourse at some point in their life, which is higher than the U.S. average. While teen pregnancy is on the decline for both the U.S. overall and Indiana, it is not improving as quickly in the state of Indiana as elsewhere.
- Substance and Alcohol Abuse: Substance abuse is a more significant issue among Indiana’s boys than girls.
- Mental Health: Indiana’s high school girls reported high rates of eating disorders. In 2011, Indiana’s high school girls were more likely than all U.S. high school girls to take diet pills, powders, or liquids, as well as vomit or take laxatives in order to lose weight or to keep from gaining weight.
- Violence and Abuse: The percentage of Indiana’s high school girls who reported that they had been physically forced to have sexual intercourse was significantly greater than the national rate in 2009 and 2011.
Transform Consulting Group can help your organization use data tools like The Report on the Status of Girls in Indiana to help identify trends and make recommendations to maximize the impact of your work. Yogi Berra stated “If you don’t know where you are going, how are you gonna know when you get there?” Contact us today and we’ll help you get there.
