PORTLAND (AP) – Maine ranked 12th in a national study on the well-being of children, which showed a decrease in the state’s teenage birth rate but found the number of young adults that were not working or in school was higher than the national average.

In 2002, the Kids Count report found, 17,000 Mainers aged between 18 and 24 were not working, not in school and did not have a degree beyond high school. The state’s 18 percent rate of “disconnected” youth was higher than the national average of 15 percent.

Nationally, “over 3.8 million disconnected youth face a greater likelihood of bad outcomes, now and in the future, which hold severe implications for our society,” said Douglas W. Nelson, president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a private research and grant-making concern that focuses on children.

The report also compared data from 1996 and 2001. The Maine Children’s Alliance found that the birth rate for Maine teens between 15 and 17 decreased from 17 per 1,000 females in 1996 to 12 in 2001. The national rate is more than twice that at 25 births per 1,000.

Maine’s infant mortality rate increased during the same period, though it was still below the national average. The group noted that Maine’s relatively low number of births meant that just 23 more infant deaths boosted the state’s mortality rate from 4.4 per 1,000 live births in 1996 to 6.1 in 2001.

The Kids Count report ranked neighboring New Hampshire second overall and said the Granite State had the lowest teen birth rate, infant mortality rate and child poverty rate.

Vermont came in sixth overall.

“The New England states have always done well” in the Kids Count reports, said Donald Swartz, a Vermont pediatrician who works for the Health Department. “New Hampshire and Vermont and Maine kind of play tag as to who is going to be above the other.”

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On the Net:

Kids Count: http://www.kidscount.org

AP-ES-06-02-04 1804EDT