Our Youth Are Ready For ACTION.
A total of 223,322 children and youth live in Detroit.
In 2023, the population of Detroit, according to the Data Driven Detroit was 639,125 (Census 2020 & Detroit City Council Districts, 2021), making children and youth over a third (35%) of Detroit’s population. When this data was pulled, the largest group (28%) of youths were emerging adults aged 18-24. Conversely, the smallest group of youths were teenagers (11%) aged 15-17. The breakdown in ascending percentage groups was children aged 5-9 (19%), children under 5 (21%), and youths aged 10-14 years (21%).
The largest population of Detroit’s youths aged 0-24 live in Districts 6 and 7, with around 35,000 to 38,000 youths living in each of these districts, respectively.
A moderate number of youths live in Districts 1, 2, and 4, with around 30,000 and 35,000 youths living in these districts. Fewer youths live in Districts 3 and 5, with around 22,500 and 30,000 youths living in these districts.
One of Detroit’s racism and discrimination legacies is redlining. In 1939, the government deemed neighborhoods of color hazardous for investment (Redlining in Michigan, n.d).
Redlining exists in transactions between people, such as a Black family looking for a home and a lender. When a lender chooses not to give credit to that Black family, it can make it impossible to achieve home ownership and gain a source of wealth. These racist and discriminatory acts push families into specific neighborhoods, increase segregation, the wealth gap, and disinvestment (Swope, Hernandez, and Cushing, 2022). Recent studies find associations between families living in redlined neighborhoods, declining health outcomes, and poorer built environments (Swope, Hernandez, and Cushing, 2022). The density of Detroit youth in formerly redlined neighborhoods is highest in Districts 6 and 5, followed by Districts 1 and 3, and a few other neighborhoods throughout the city.
COVID-19 disproportionately impacted educational outcomes in Detroit compared to Michigan as a whole.
As a result of COVID-19, high school graduation rates in Detroit dropped by 8.1%, while in Michigan, the graduation rates fell by 1.2% two years after the onset of the pandemic.
Another indicator of COVID-19’s negative impact on education is the increase in chronic absenteeism. 68.7% of Detroit’s youth experienced chronic absenteeism, defined as those who missed ten school days or more. Research links chronic absenteeism to nonstandard parent work schedules, unemployment (Ballentine et al., 2022), and the school-to-prison pipeline (Lenhoff, 2023).
Similar rates of youth were diagnosed with a learning disability and received an individualized education in Detroit compared to Michigan youth generally. Not reported here are the number of youth with a learning disability and undiagnosed.
There was a decline in the number of youths tested for elevated blood lead level (EBLL) poisoning in Michigan. The decrease in youth tested for EBLL was greater in Michigan compared to Detroit.
In Detroit, 24,000 youths were tested in 2019, and only 10,000 youths were tested in 2021, an overall decline of 56%. Across Michigan, there was a drop in youth being tested for EBLL, from 164,000 youths in 2019 to 56,000 youths tested in 2021, an overall decline of 65%. In 2021, EBLL for Detroit youth was 6%.
During COVID-19, 69 teenagers aged 15-18 committed suicide in Detroit. The proportion of Black to White youth who committed suicide is slightly lower for Black youth and higher for White youth than the demographics of Detroit. In 2022, Detroit was estimated to be 77.8% Black and 12.2% White (Quickfacts Detroit City, n.d.). The reported suicide rates were 74% Black youth and 18% White youth. It is hard to know if the numbers match up as Data Driven Detroit may report different demographics than the census.
The ratio of teenage girls giving birth is higher in Detroit than in the nation. In 2021, 27.6 Detroit teenage girls gave birth for every 1,000 births. In 2020, the CDC (2022) reported that nationally, the ratio of teen girls aged 15–19 was 15.4 births per 1,000 births.
Individuals with asthma and diabetes were at increased risk for COVID-19 (Lombardi et al., 2021). In the state of Michigan, youth from low-income families who qualify for Medicare increased their emergency visits for asthma (by .5%) and diabetes (5.8%).
The overall number of ER visits decreased *and* the number of asthma visits decreased. There is a slightly larger percentage because the overall number of visits declined more than the asthma visits. According to Data Driven Detroit, Detroit youth were 3+ times more likely to visit the ER with asthma and diabetes than expected based on the size of their population; contextually, 7.7% of youth live in Detroit compared to the rest of the state.
Data, Maps, and Visualizations provided by Data Driven Detroit.
If you are interested in more youth-related data, check out their State of the Detroit Child tool.
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