Education and school quality, social media use and gun violence are among the top concerns Georgia parents have for their children, according to a study released Tuesday by Emory University.
The State of Child Health and Well-Being in Georgia 2025 is based on a survey of nearly 1,000 parents. Topics ranged from food security to school safety, culminating in a report that the authors say is a call to action.
“Georgia’s parents are telling us loud and clear: Their kids need help,” said Dr. Stephen Patrick, a department chair at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health. “We want Georgia to be the best place in America to be a kid, and that means listening to families and building a future where every child can grow up healthy, safe and supported.”
As part of the survey, the parents were asked to rank their top concerns for their children. The majority ranked education and school quality as their number one concern. Not far behind were social media use and then bullying (including cyberbullying).
The worries vary depending on their race and location.
Gun violence ranked fourth on the list, largely due to the responses of Black and Hispanic parents. Both groups named it as their top concern, while it didn’t make the top five for white parents.
The survey indicates there is widespread worry about school safety. Sixty percent think schools today are less safe than they were 10 years ago. Nearly a third said their child’s school had gone into lockdown this school year.
Administered months after a deadly shooting at Apalachee High School northeast of Atlanta, parents showed overwhelming support for certain school safety measures included in HB 268, which was recently signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp. More than 80% support a statewide protocol that alerts schools if a transferring student has been previously flagged for potentially dangerous behavior.
While most rural parents reported having guns in the home, gun violence did not rank among their top five concerns. Instead, they named drug and alcohol use as a top worry.
Georgia has seen a rapid increase in opioid-involved overdose deaths since 2010. From 2019 and 2021, deaths involving opioids increased 236% and deaths involving fentanyl increased 800%, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.
The Emory study notes that Georgia’s children are affected by poverty at a rate nearly twice as high as adults and seniors. “This economic vulnerability magnifies the impact of other challenges, limiting access to opportunity, stability, and overall well-being,” reads the report.
That poverty can mean food insecurity. More than a fifth of parents surveyed said that in the last 12 months, their household has had to either cut the size of their meals or skip them completely because there wasn’t enough money for food. That was most common in Hispanic, Black and rural households.
More than 36% of Georgia’s kids are food insecure, according to the study. That’s more than double the national average and equates to about 1 million children statewide.
One potential solution had overwhelming backing; more than 90% said they support free breakfast and lunch for all children in Georgia public schools.
Emory’s team hopes the study will be used by policymakers, community organizers and health care providers to positively impact children statewide.
“These findings are a first step toward improving outcomes for Georgia’s children and families around the issues that most affect their daily lives,” the school wrote.
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