Over the past 30 years, a prominent stream of research has addressed the conceptualization and measurement of child well-being and the construction of child well-being indices. This paper extends this accumulating body of research in five ways. First, an index of child well-being for US children ages 6-11 is constructed using individual children (micro-data) as the unit of analysis rather than populationbased measures which have typically been used in the past. Second, the new index uses a recently developed US data source (National Survey of Children's Health) to incorporate far more measures related to child well-being (69) into an index than have been used in past efforts. Third, this research explicitly separates child outcome measures (measures of child well-being) from contextual measures (seen as measures of risk or inputs). Fourth, separate indices are developed for children age 6-11 and those aged 12-17. Fifth, analyses show that contextual indicators add significant albeit modest power over and above common demographic measures (age, gender, race/ethnicity) as predictors of individual differences in well-being among children.

to be published as part of Assessing the New Federalism, a joint project of Child Trends and the Urban Institute.

Child indicators, Indices, Child well-being, National Survey of America’s Families,

Children's behavior was assessed with 3 cross-sectional random-digit-dial telephone surveys conducted 11 months before, 4 months after, and 6 months after September 11, 2001. Parents reported fewer behavior problems in children 4 months after the attacks compared with the pre-September 11 baseline. However, 6 months after the attacks, parents' reporting of behavior problems was comparable to pre-September 11 levels. In the 1st few months after a disaster, the identification of children who need mental health treatment may be complicated by a dampened behavioral response or by a decreased sensitivity of parental assessment to behavioral problems.

child, children, child well-being, demographic risk, educational attainment, family income, family size, family structure, family well-being, home ownership, index, indicators, measures, outcomes, poverty, poverty indicator alternative, risk, single parent household, social risks, sociodemographic risk index, sociodemographic risk, socioeconomic risk,