America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2007

Indicator Needed

Health

National indicators on several key dimensions of health are not yet available because of the difficulties in reaching consensus on relevant definitions and measurements. The following health-related area has been identified as a priority for indicator development by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics:

• Disability. The Forum is very interested in developing an improved measure of functioning that can be derived from regularly collected data. Such a measure is often referred to as a disability measure. The difficulties inherent in developing such a measure relate to the fact that disability is a complicated, multidimensional concept. Many definitions of disability are currently in use by policymakers and researchers, but there is little agreement regarding which aspects of functioning should be included or how they should be measured.