About This Report

The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics (Forum) was chartered in 1997 by Executive Order No. 13045. The Forum fosters collaboration among 23 Federal agencies that produce and use statistics on children and families and seeks to improve these Federal data. The Forum annually updates all 41 key indicators of well-being for children on its website (https://www.childstats.gov/), depending on data availability. The Forum alternates publishing a detailed report of these 41 indicators, America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, with a summary version, America's Children in Brief, which highlights selected indicators.

America's Children in Brief, 2022

This year's America's Children in Brief highlights selected special feature indicators related to COVID-19 to address the impact of this pandemic on child well-being. Indicator titles are COVID-19 Immunization, Child Food Insufficiency, Housing Instability, Pandemic Health Care and Child Care, How Schools Adapted to Pandemic Response, Summer Enrichment Programs, Child and Adolescent Mortality, and Substance Use and Mental Health of Adolescents. In addition to the focus on COVID-19, this brief provides a snapshot of the overall well-being of America's children through the At-a-Glance summary table displaying the most recent data for all 41 regular indicators.

Three special feature indicators in this brief rely on the Household Pulse Survey (HPS) as a data source.¹ The HPS was developed by the U.S. Census Bureau in collaboration with multiple Federal agencies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is designed to collect data quickly and efficiently from U.S. households to produce timely information on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the population. The survey asks respondents about educational, employment, health, housing, and food-related outcomes, as well as other topics, and offers an important new way to monitor the impact of COVID-19 on America's families with children. The HPS is different from other surveys traditionally used to provide data for America's Children. The survey was designed to go into the field quickly, be administered via the internet, and produce data for the public in near realtime. As such, data from the HPS may not meet some of the Census Bureau's traditional statistical quality standards. Readers should also be aware that this survey has several brief data collection phases. Where applicable, breaks in trend lines and data collection dates are shown in indicator figures to help ensure accurate data interpretation. Findings reported for early in the month corresponds to the 1st–10th, middle of the month to the 11th–20th, and end of the month to the 21st–last day of the month. Otherwise, indicator figure notes address specific details about the way data are displayed.

Conceptual Framework for Key National Indicators

The key national indicators of child well-being identified by the Forum are featured in an alternate full report publication and span seven domains: Family and Social Environment, Economic Circumstances, Health Care, Physical Environment and Safety, Behavior, Education, and Health. The indicators also must meet the following criteria:

• Easy to understand by broad audiences;
• Objectively based on reliable data;
• Balanced, so that no single area dominates the report;
• Measured regularly so that they can be updated and show trends; and
• Representative of large segments of the population.

Race and Ethnicity

Every effort is made to include data breakouts by race and ethnicity for regular indicators in the full America's Children report and for selected indicators in this year's brief. Unless otherwise noted, data by race and ethnicity in this report have implemented the Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity (hereafter referred to as standards on race and ethnicity) issued in 1997 by the Office of Management and Budget (https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1997-10-30/pdf/97-28653.pdf). The 1997 standards on race and ethnicity allow for observer or proxy identification of race but clearly state a preference for self-classification. Persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race. Data on race and Hispanic origin are collected separately and presented in the greatest detail possible considering the quality of the data, the amount of missing data, and the number of observations. Data in this report are generally presented for the following six race and Hispanic origin groups: American Indian or Alaska Native, non-Hispanic; Asian, non-Hispanic; Black or African American, non-Hispanic; Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, non-Hispanic; White, non-Hispanic; and Hispanic or Latino. On the charts, shortened labels often are used because of limited space.

The 1997 standards on race and ethnicity also offer an opportunity for respondents to select more than one of the five race groups, leading to many possible multiple-race categories. These standards allow for two basic ways of defining a race group. A group such as Black may be defined as those who reported Black and no other race (the race-alone or single-race concept) or those who reported Black regardless of whether they also reported another race (the race-alone or in-combination concept). In this report, indicators present data using the first approach (single race). Use of the single-race population does not imply that it is the preferred method of presenting or analyzing data. Generally, a small percentage of people report two or more races. When possible, estimates for this group are shown separately. All groups not shown separately are included in the totals.

Statistical Significance

Most data in this report are estimates based on a sample of the population and are therefore subject to sampling error. Differences between estimates are tested for statistical significance at either the 0.05 or 0.10 cutoff level, according to agency standards; all differences discussed in the report are statistically significant according to the standards of the agency responsible for the data. Agency details about statistical reporting standards for indicators included in the America's Children report and standard error tables for select indicators are available online at https://www.childstats.gov.

For Further Information on the Forum

The Forum's website (https://www.childstats.gov) also includes this additional information:

• Detailed data for indicators discussed in this brief as well as trend data and other America's Children indicators not discussed here.
• Data source descriptions and agency contact information.
• America's Children reports from 1997 to the present and other Forum reports.
• Links to Forum agencies, their online data tools, and various international data sources.
• Forum news and information on the Forum's overall structure and organization.