2025 Children's of Alabmama Community Health Needs Assessment

DEMOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS

Understanding demographic data for the U.S., Alabama, and the primary and secondary regions for Children’s, is critical to understanding and interpreting CHNA data.

POPULATION

Over the last 10 years, the number of children has dropped in both the state and the nation. Children, as a percent of the national population 4 , have dropped steadily to the current rate of 21.6%. For context, in 1900, children under 18 accounted for 40% of the population. At the state level, the share dropped steadily from 2015 to 2022 and has fluctuated since. See Figure 3. At present, Alabama ranks 20 th in the nation for the highest percentage of children in the population 5 .

Figure 3. Children As a Percentage of the Population

In Alabama, between 2020 and 2024, the population of children increased by 0.3% to 1,334,857, and boys outnumber girls by 4%. 6

The share of children under 5 has also dropped year over year and is 1.9% smaller than in 2020. 7

______________________________________ 4 O’Hare, W.P. 2011. The changing child population of the United States: Analysis of data from the 2010 census. Baltimore, MD: The Annie E. Casey Foundation. Retrieved from www.aecf.org/resources/ the-changing-child-population-of-the-united-states; 2020 data: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census Redistricting Data (Public Law 94-171). 5 Ibid. 6 Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Selected Age Groups by Sex for Alabama: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2024 (SC-EST2024-AGESEX-01). U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division. June 2025. 7 Ibid.

Children’s of Alabama, 2025 CHNA

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