Are Things Getting Worse? They Are, Index Says : Quality of life: Statistics that monitor categories such as child abuse, teen suicide and health care costs alarm analysts as declines worsen.

If you think more children than ever are being abused, if you think the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer, if you think health care costs are more burdensome than ever--You’re right.

Sociologist Marc Miringoff has tracked 17 social problems for the last 20 years with his Index of Social Health, and after a steady decline its latest reading has sunk to its lowest point. In fact, the index has dropped 51% since numbers were first compiled in 1970.

Five problems are at their worst level: child abuse; suicide among teen-agers; the chasm between the rich and poor; a greater percentage of people has no health insurance, and people over 65 are spending more of their own money on doctor bills.

Overall, 12 of the 17 categories have worsened in the last 20 years.

“It’s a warning sign. The fact that so many problems are worsening to so great an extent is a cause for concern. It says something about the soul of the nation,” said Miringoff, director of the Fordham University Institute for Innovation in Social Policy at Tarrytown, N. Y.

“It’s like the movie ‘Jaws.’ We can’t keep denying there’s a shark out there. There are people bloodied on the beach. We can’t leave the beach open and let everybody swim. We better take action,” Miringoff said.

The index covers the period from 1970 to 1989, the last year for which statistics are available. It is the only comprehensive barometer of its kind; the government keeps records in individual categories but does not compile an overview.

“It’s fragmented all over the place. We have plenty of indicators to tell us when something is wrong with the economy. But we’re the only industrial country in the world that doesn’t have a national social report,” Miringoff said. “No business could survive if it ran the way we run our social policy.”

Leo Goldstone, director of World Statistics Ltd. and a former official with the United Nation, noted that the U. S. government keeps superb data on the economy but very little on social issues.

“That’s a great pity. It’s very hard to get a simple overview picture. It must be very difficult for the government to form social policy in a coherent way,” Goldstone said.

The index offers a view of society as a whole and how it addresses its major social problems. Like a report card, it assigns points in each category. The top grade is 100. In 1970, the score was 68; in 1989, it fell to 33, a drop of six points from the year before.

One of the most troublesome trends Miringoff tracks is child abuse, which has increased every year for 20 years. In 1989, there were 2.2 million cases of reported abuse, triple the number from 20 years ago.

Also, the number of children living in poverty is up 26% since 1970.

“Children in the richest country on Earth are doing very badly. We’re going backward,” said Olivia Golden, director of policy at the Children’s Defense Fund, an advocacy group in Washington.

Over the last 20 years, Miringoff’s index shows that suicide among teen-agers has almost doubled to 5,000 cases.

The rich got richer and the poor got poorer during the same time. The gap between the percentage of income for those in the top fifth and bottom fifth widened by 59%.

The percentage of people without health insurance rose to 16% from 10%, and the percentage of income that people over 65 spent on health care rose to 19% from 15%.

Other areas that worsened include drug abuse, poverty among heads of households, the percentage of unemployed not receiving jobless pay, highway deaths due to alcoholism and the portion of those below the poverty line not receiving food stamps.

Improvements since 1970 included a fewer high school dropouts, a better standing on infant mortality rates (though the United States still ranks 22nd in the world), fewer people without jobs and a decrease in the number of those over 65 who live below the poverty level.

The homicide rate is about the same, even though the number of murders in cities has been increasing, Miringoff said.

That some things are improving and others are worsening speaks to the quality of programs.

For example, the number of people over 65 who live in poverty has been cut in half because of the success of Social Security. But the number of children living in poverty has increased. One explanation: Social Security is a federal entitlement with automatic cost of living adjustments; welfare increases depend on votes in the 50 state legislatures.

One in seven American children is on welfare, Miringoff said. The buying power for those on welfare has declined 43% since 1970.

“There are quotes from all kinds of philosophers that you measure a society by what it does for its vulnerable,” Miringoff said.

Meanwhile, an index for the social health of New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles reached its lowest point in 10 years in 1989, the latest year for which numbers are available.

The statistics for the national index come from a host of sources: the Bureau of Census, the Centers for Disease Control, the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse, the National Center for Health Statistics, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Department of Labor, the American Assn. of Retired Persons, the FBI and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.