Malta is not a pleasant place for children to live, according to research on young people's well-being that ranked the island in the last place among 29 countries.
However, results had to be treated with caution because missing data could have had a bearing on the low ranking, a spokesman for the group that conducted the research said.
The study was carried out by the UK charity organisation Child Poverty Action Group, which focused on children from birth till 19. A league table was compiled covering all 27 EU countries as well as Norway and Iceland.
The table placed The Netherlands, Sweden and Norway as the three best countries for children, while Latvia, Lithuania and Malta were the worst placed. The study, based on data compiled in 2006, provided a snapshot and not a trend, the report cautioned.
"This three-year time difference also means many government policy initiatives from the last few years are not fully reflected in the data," the report said.
A spokesman for the group said the study was based on 43 indicators in seven main domains: health; subjective well-being; children's relationships; material resources; behaviour and risk; education; and housing and environment. Malta provided data for only four domains and this could have had a bearing on its general low ranking.
"Missing data may mean that areas of strength were not included to counter balance weaknesses," the spokesman said. The research, carried out by York University, ranked Malta 28th, followed by Greece, for the health domain that included infant mortality, low birth weight, immunisation figures and children's health behaviour (such as exercise, eating fruit and brushing teeth). This category was topped by Sweden, The Netherlands and Denmark.
Malta also ranked 28th in the subjective well-being domain that looked into how children felt about their lives, whether they liked school and felt pressured and how they rated their own health. The Netherlands, Austria and Greece fared best here.
Malta followed Slovakia and Greece and placed 21st in children's relationships that explored quality of family and peer group relationships and gauged how easily children found talking to their parents and classmates.
When it came to behaviour and risk - covering violence, deaths, smoking, drinking and drug abuse - Malta ranked 14th and was followed by Denmark and Hungary.
No data was provided for the material resources (that looked into poverty), education and housing, and environment domains.
Earlier this year, during a homily at the World Peace Day 2009 Mass, Archbishop Paul Cremona pointed out that child poverty affected Malta.
National Statistics Office figures published in 2007 revealed that almost 15 per cent of the population fell below the poverty line, including almost 22 per cent of under-16s.