Jolie & Pitt draw attention to kids' health issues

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt used their star power Saturday to help The Children's Health Fund focus attention on the more than 46,000 children still displaced 2 1/2 years after hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed their homes.

Though the mood was light among many of the attendees, the tone of the topic at hand was dire and distressing. Having used their star power to draw the excited crowd and media attention, Jolie and Pitt remained mum and let the experts do the talking.

"We are seeing an exacerbation of problems," said Mississippi pediatrician Persharon Dixon, who ticked off a list of ailments that she said are afflicting children at an alarming rate in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, including stress, hypertension, diabetes and depression.

The news conference at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School follows closely the release of a study that found that more than 46,000 children along the Gulf Coast are still struggling with mental health problems and other serious aftereffects of the 2005 hurricanes.

The study -- completed by the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and the Children's Health Fund -- estimated that more than half of the still-displaced children in Louisiana exhibit one of three "risk factors" that can have a permanent impact in their lives. The factors are a drop in academic achievement, limited access to health care and clinically diagnosed depression or behavior disorders.