America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2017

• NCJ Number: 251513
• Date Published: July 2017
• Length: 228 pages
• Agencies: OJJDP-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Statistics; Report (Technical Assistance); Report (Study/Research)

Annotation

This 2017 report on "key national indicators of well-being" for America's children presents data on 41 key indicators of important aspects of children's lives, as reported by reliable federal statistics based on substantial research.

Abstract

The indicators pertain to seven broad domains: family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health. Under family and social environment, data are presented on family structure and children's living arrangement, births to unmarried women, child care, children of at least one foreign-born parent, language spoken at home and difficulty speaking English, adolescent births, and child maltreatment. Data on economic circumstances address child poverty and income distribution, supplemental poverty measure, secure parental employment, and food security. Features of health care addressed are health insurance coverage, usual source of health care, immunization, and oral health. Data on physical environment and safety cover outdoor air quality, secondhand smoke, drinking- water quality, lead in blood of children, housing problems, youth victims of serious violent crimes, child injury and mortality, and adolescent injury and mortality. Topics covered under behavior are regular cigarette smoking, alcohol use, illicit drug use, sexual activity, and youth perpetrators of serious violent crimes. Subjects covered under education are family reading to young children, mathematics and reading achievement, high school academic course-taking, high school completion, youth neither enrolled in school nor working, and college enrollment. Health factors include pre-term birth and low birth weight, infant mortality, emotional and behavioral difficulties, adolescent depression, activity limitation, diet quality, obesity, and asthma. In addition to updating data sources and expanding several indicators, this year's report presents a special feature on peer victimization among third-graders in the United States. Appended detailed tables and data-source descriptions