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Bullying is a serious public health issue among children and adolescents in the United States. The purpose of this study was to estimate the prevalence of bullying victimization (defined as a child being bullied, picked on, or excluded by children) in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. We used data on bullying victimization from the 2016-2017 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH). We stratified the sample by age: children aged 6-11 years (n = 21 142) and adolescents aged 12-17 years (n = 29 011). We conducted bivariate analyses to determine the prevalence of bullying victimization by state for each age group. In the survey, parents/caregivers responded to a question about whether it was "definitely true," "somewhat true," or "not true" that their child "is being bullied, picked on, or excluded by other children." We combined "definitely true" and "somewhat true" responses to create a dichotomous variable for bullying victimization. Parents reported 22.4% of children aged 6-11 years and 21.0% of adolescents aged 12-17 years as experiencing bullying victimization during 2016-2017. The prevalence of bullying victimization among children ranged from 16.5% in New York State to 35.9% in Wyoming and among adolescents ranged from 14.9% in Nevada to 31.6% in Montana. The prevalence of bullying victimization among children or adolescents was >30% in 7 states: Arkansas, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. These data can be used to inform state programs and policies to support bullying prevention efforts and services for children and adolescents who experience bullying. NSCH will continue to collect data on bullying victimization to track annual trends in national and state-level prevalence rates among children and adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Racial differences in mortality in the United States have narrowed and vary by time and place. The objectives of our study were to (1) examine the gap in life expectancy between white and black persons (hereinafter, racial gap in life expectancy) in 4 states (California, Georgia, Illinois, and New York) and (2) estimate trends in the contribution of major causes of death (CODs) to the racial gap in life expectancy by age group. Methods: We extracted data on the number of deaths and population sizes for 1969-2013 by state, sex, race, age group, and 6 major CODs. We used a Bayesian time-series model to smooth and impute mortality rates and decomposition methods to estimate trends in sex- and age-specific contributions of CODs to the racial gap in life expectancy. Results: The racial gap in life expectancy at birth decreased in all 4 states, especially among men in New York (from 8.8 to 1.1 years) and women in Georgia (from 8.0 to 1.7 years). Although few deaths occurred among persons aged 1-39, racial differences in mortality at these ages (mostly from injuries and infant mortality) contributed to the racial gap in life expectancy, especially among men in California (1.0 year of the 4.3-year difference in 2013) and Illinois (1.9 years of the 6.7-year difference in 2013). Cardiovascular deaths contributed most to the racial gap in life expectancy for adults aged 40-64, but contributions decreased among women aged 40-64, especially in Georgia (from 2.8 to 0.5 years). The contribution of cancer deaths to inequality increased in California and Illinois, whereas New York had the greatest reductions in inequality attributable to cancer deaths (from 0.6 to 0.2 years among men and from 0.2 to 0 years among women). Conclusions: Future research should identify policy innovations and economic changes at the state level to better understand New York's success, which may help other states emulate its performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]