America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2009

Foreword

In 1994, the Office of Management and Budget joined with six other Federal agencies to create the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Formally established in April 1997 through Executive Order No. 13045, the Forum is charged with developing priorities for collecting enhanced data on children and youth, improving the reporting and dissemination of information on the status of children to the policy community and the general public, and producing more complete data on children at the state and local levels. The Forum, which now has participants from 22 Federal agencies as well as partners in private research organizations, fosters coordination, collaboration, and integration of Federal efforts to collect and report data on conditions and trends for children and families and calls attention to needs for new data about them.

America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2009 is a compendium of indicators illustrating both the promises and the difficulties confronting our Nation's young people. The report presents 40 key indicators on important aspects of children's lives. These indicators are drawn from our most reliable statistics, easily understood by broad audiences, objectively based on substantial research, balanced so that no single area of children's lives dominates the report, measured regularly so that they can be updated to show trends over time, and representative of large segments of the population rather than one particular group.

This year's report continues to present key indicators grouped by the seven sections identified in the restructured 10th anniversary report (2007): family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health. The report incorporates several modifications that reflect the Forum's ongoing efforts to improve its quality and comprehensiveness: updates to data sources and substantive expansions or clarifications have been made for several indicators; a regular indicator on adolescent depression has been added, addressing an ongoing data gap on the mental heath of children; and a special feature, Children with Special Health Care Needs, has been included.

Each volume of America's Children has also highlighted critical data gaps and challenged Federal statistical agencies to do better. Forum agencies are meeting that challenge by working to provide more comprehensive and consistent information on the condition and progress of our Nation's children. Since the last full report (America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2007), Forum agencies have continued efforts to strengthen some indicators and to close critical data gaps, particularly in areas such as disability, the mental health of children, and environmental quality. In addition, the Forum has established a new Research and Innovation Committee charged with developing innovative ways of addressing existing gaps in our systems of collecting, reporting, and disseminating information on the status of children and families. This committee made valuable contributions to the identification of "indicators needed" in this year's report. The Forum is confident that, over time, the committee's work will facilitate an even more well-rounded portrait of America's children.

The value of the America's Children reports and the extraordinary cooperation they represent reflect the Forum's determination to advance our understanding of where our children are today and what may be needed to bring them a better tomorrow. The Forum agencies should be congratulated once again for joining together to address their common goals: developing a truly comprehensive set of indicators on the well-being of America's children and ensuring that this information is readily accessible in both content and format. Their accomplishments reflect the dedication of the Forum agency staff members who coordinate the assessment of data needs, evaluate strategies to make data presentations more consistent, and work together to produce important publications and provide these products on the Forum's website. Last but not least, none of this work would be possible without the continued cooperation of millions of American citizens who willingly provide the data that are summarized and analyzed by staff in the Federal agencies. We invite you to suggest ways in which we can enhance this annual portrait of the Nation's most valuable resource: its children. I applaud the Forum's collaborative efforts in producing this report and hope that our compendium will continue to be useful in your work.

Katherine K. Wallman
Chief Statistician
Office of Management and Budget