America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2007
In 1994, the Office of Management and Budget joined with six other Federal agencies to create the Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Formally established in April 1997 through Executive Order No. 13045, the Forum is charged to develop priorities for collecting enhanced data on children and youth, improve the reporting and dissemination of information on the status of children to the policy community and the general public, and produce 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, 2007 is a compendium of indicators—drawn from the most reliable official statistics—illustrative of both the promises and the difficulties confronting our Nation's young people. The report presents 38 key indicators on important aspects of children's lives. These indicators are 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.
As the Forum approached its 10th anniversary, its members engaged in a comprehensive review of the domains and indicators that have been presented during the past decade. As a result, this year's report has been modestly restructured into seven sections that cover family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health. Moreover, the review pointed to recommendations for a number of new indicators, which include: child maltreatment, oral health, drinking water quality, lead in the blood of children, child injury and mortality, adolescent injury and mortality, sexual activity, college enrollment, and asthma. Finally, this year's report reflects the Forum's creation of guidelines for presenting data involving race and ethnicity with greater consistency and continuity.
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, 2005), Forum agencies have continued efforts to strengthen some indicators and to close critical data gaps, particularly in areas such as child maltreatment, drinking water quality, and the mental health of children. The Forum believes that, taken together, the modifications introduced in this year's report have created 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. With the publication of this 10th anniversary edition, the Forum agencies deserve special congratulations. 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