Nation : Children’s Health Worse, Study Says

WASHINGTON — The health of America’s children has deteriorated since the late 1970s and during the Reagan years, leaving millions of youngsters “in a state of crisis,” a study said today.

The study, by the National Assn. of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions, said that after years of progress, the nation’s 64 million children are compromised today by “new morbidities”--child abuse, poor dietary habits, a high rate of accidental deaths, mental problems, chronic illnesses and AIDS. William Considine, chairman of the organization, warned: “If the past is prologue to future public policy, our children will go wanting. For one full decade we have failed them.”