New "Child Indicators" Report Offers Data To Track Children's Well-Being

Program contact:Jeanne Griffith(703) 306-1780/jgriffit@nsf.gov

NEW "CHILD INDICATORS" REPORT OFFERS DATA TO TRACK CHILDREN'SWELL-BEING

The Federal Agency Forum on Child and Family Statisticsreleased today, in Washington, D.C., a new report that offers acomposite picture of the well-being of the nation's children.

"America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being," presents 25 key indicators on critical aspects ofchildren's lives, including their behavior and socialenvironment, economic security, education, and health.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is one of eightagencies contributing to the new report.

"This highly informative report on our nation's childrenrepresents an important new use of statistical informationavailable from many sources in the federal government," saysBennett Bertenthal, a cognitive development psychologist and headof NSF's Directorate for Social, Behavioral and EconomicSciences.

"As researchers, we know that data measuring our children'slives are like individual stars; only by studying the stars, orstatistics, in relation to each other, do we begin to seeimportant patterns - a constellation that is far greater than thesum of its parts," says Bertenthal. "By combining information onnumerous topics, this report enables us to gain a betterperspective on the whole of our children's lives, and tounderstand how each facet is related to the others.

"The value of the report will be realized infuture years, as we monitor these and other indicators to learnhow children's lives are changing with changes in theirenvironments," Bertenthal says.

The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statisticswas founded in 1994 and formally established by Executive Order13045 to foster coordination and collaboration in the collectionand reporting of Federal data on children and families.Statistical agencies within the departments of Agriculture,Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and UrbanDevelopment, Justice, Labor, the National Science Foundation andthe Office of Management and Budget.

For copies of the full report, contact theNational Maternal and Child Health Bureau Clearinghouse, (703)356-1964, or see the National Center for Health Statistics homepage: http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/nchshome.htm

-NSF- Attachment: America's Children: Data Resources

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FACT SHEET

AMERICA'S CHILDREN: DATA RESOURCES

Media Contact: George Chartier (703)306-1070, gchartie@nsf.gov

The National Science Foundation (NSF) funds a number of studieson the well-being of children and periodically issues severalrelated statistical reports. An entire directorate of NSF isdevoted to Education and Human Resources, and many researchprograms within the Directorate for Social, Behavioral andEconomic Sciences pertain to child development.

Statistical Reports

Reports may be accessed via the World Wide Web. For printedcopies, send e-mail request to pubs@nsf.gov, a fax to (703)6444278, or written request to: NSF Forms and Publications Unit,4201 Wilson Blvd., Room P-15, Arlington VA 22230, specifying theNSF publication number and your mailing address.

* NSF 96-52 Indicators of Science & Mathematics Education 1995Parent and student profiles (education, languages, race/ethnicorigin), student proficiency in science and mathematics, andtheir learning environment (high school graduating credits,teacher profiles). http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/EHR/RED/redpubs.htm

* NSB 96-21 Science & Engineering Indicators 1996National assessment of educational progress, changes inproficiencies by sex and race/ethnicity, state comparisons,impact of high school science and engineering course work ontransitions to college and employment, science literacy, computeraccess for the next generation. http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/pubdata.htm

* NSF 96-311 Women, Minorities and Persons with Disabilities inScience and Engineering 1996Comparative data on representation and achievement in education,factors influencing achievement, family background,characteristics of schools, students with disabilities,transition to higher education. http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/pubdata.htm

* Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)International comparative results, produced by the InternationalAssociation for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, andfunded in part by NSF. http://wwwcsteep.bc.edu/timss Research Centers and Programs

* NSF National Consortium on Violence ResearchBased at Carnegie Mellon University, directed by AlfredBlumstein, this is a cross-disciplinary effort aimed atunderstanding the causes of violence. (412) 268-8269, ab0q@andrew.cmu.edu

* The Panel Study of Income DynamicsBased at the University of Michigan, directed by Sandra Hofferthand Frank Stafford, this study tracks individual and familyincome sources and amounts, employment, family compositionchanges (economic effects of divorce on children), andresidential data. NSF is the study's major funding source. (313) 763-5166, http://www.umich.edu/~psid

* National Bureau of Economic ResearchBased at Harvard University, directed by Martin Feldstein, thisis a network of researchers studying the economics of family.Visitors to its Web site can access NBER discussion papers on thefamily. Many of the articles that appear in the NBER Digest onresearch results are from NSF supported projects. (617) 868-3900, http://nber.harvard.edu

* NSF Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic SciencesSocial Psychology research program, Human Cognition andPerception research program, Division for Science ResourcesStudies. http://www.nsf.gov/sbe

* NSF Directorate for Education and Human ResourcesEducation systemic reform initiative, elementary and secondaryeducation research, International Mathematics and Science Study,and links to initiatives such as the Urban School SuperintendentsCoalition. http://www.ehr.nsf.gov -NSF-