PREVALENCE OF ORPANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN

The data we used for ranking the states for prevalence of orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs) was from the Demographic and Health Survey which defined an orphan is defined as a child under age 18 with one or both parents deceased. While a vulnerable child is defined as a child under age 18 who has a chronically ill parent or who lives in a household where an adult was chronically ill or died during the 12 months preceding the survey.

To arrive at the rankings of the prevalence of OVCs in the individual states, the following two criteria were used:

• Not Living With Biological Parents
• Orphaned and Vulnerable Children