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Study Calls for New Measures of Child and Family Well-BeingNational Center for Education in Maternal and Child HealthMarch 31, 2000 Noting the absence of consistent longitudinal measures of children's well-being in the US, a recent study calls for improved indicators in areas such as mental health and child abuse and neglect. "A seamless set of measures … that goes across the years of childhood" would be ideal given that "indicators have become an important tool of social debate, planning and governance." According to a related Child Trends research brief, "developing measures of positive youth development is the next frontier in the study of child and family well-being." Such indicators would allow researchers and policymakers to describe the circumstances of US children and families, monitor outcomes for policy and planning purposes, set goals (such as the Healthy People 2010 objectives), coordinate public- and private-sector efforts to accomplish such goals, and evaluate program effectiveness. The author notes that some indicators are "only now being developed, and many gaps exist," and that the indicators that do exist are being used despite these shortcomings. In the absence of such indicators, it will be difficult to assess the effects of recent programs, including the 1996 welfare reform law and the Child Health Insurance Program, the author states. An additional consideration in developing indicators of well-being is that most current indicators "[assess] problems like infant mortality, substance abuse, violence, teen pregnancy, family poverty and, crime" rather than "positive youth development." The author writes, "Much research focuses on the determinants of problem behaviors or the consequences of problem behaviors" instead of on "the determinants and consequences of positive behaviors." She observes that determining appropriate positive outcomes for youth is controversial, because what one group may regard as a positive outcome--such as having and acting upon religious values--another group may consider unimportant. Nonetheless, the author states that there is a need to conceptualize and measure US youth accomplishments as well as outcomes they should avoid. Emig C, Moore A, eds. Nd. Building a better system of child and family indicators. Child Trends Research Brief. Available at http://www.childtrends.org>. Moore KA. 1999, Sept. 13. Indicators of child and family well-being: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Presented to National Institutes of Health, Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. Available at http://www.childtrends.org/PDF/99-08.pdf. To subscribe to the MCH Alert,
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