Social scientists are concerned that many measures of children's physical and emotional health are inadequate, misleading, or outdated, leaving policymakers ill-informed. This book provides an inquiry into current efforts to monitor children from the prenatal period through adolescence. Working with the most up-to-date statistical sources, experts from multiple disciplines assess how data on physical development, education, economic security, family and neighborhood conditions, and social behavior are collected and analyzed, what findings they reveal, and what improvements are needed to create a more comprehensive and policy-relevant system of measurement. The chapters of the book are: (1) "Indicators of Children's Well-Being: A Review of Current Indicators Based on Data from the Federal Statistical System" (Brown); (2) "Criteria for Indicators of Child Well-Being" (Moore); (3) "Population Indicators of Prenatal and Infant Health" (Lantz and Partin); (4) "Health Indicators for Preschool Children, Ages One to Four" (Wolfe and Sears); (5) "Health Indicators for Preadolescent School-Age Children" (Starfield); (6) "Adolescent Health Indicators" (Elster); (7) "Indicators for School Readiness, Schooling, and Child Care in Early to Middle Childhood" (Phillips and Love); (8) "Indicators of High School Completion and Dropout" (Hauser); (9) "Postsecondary and Vocational Educations: Keeping Track of the College Track" (Kane); (10) "Indicators of Educational Achievement" (Koretz); (11) "Indicators of Children's Economic Well-Being and Parental Employment" (Mayer); (12)"Longitudinal Indicators of Children's Poverty and Dependence" (Duncan and Moscow); (13) "Parental Employment and Children" (Smith, Brooks-Gunn, and Jackson); (14) "Demographic Change and the Population of Children: Race/Ethnicity, Immigration, and Family Size" (Hogan and Eggebeen); (15) "Family Structure, Stability, and the Well-Being of Children" (Sandefur and Mosley); (16) "The Influence of Neighborhoods on Children's Development: A Theoretical Perspective and a Research Agenda" (Furstenberg and Hughes); (17) "Potential and Problems in Developing Community-Level Indicators of Children's Well-Being" (Coulton); (18) "Indicators of Positive Development in Early Childhood: Improving Concepts and Measures" (Aber and Jones); (19) "Indicators of Problem Behavior and Problems in Early Childhood" (Love); (20) "Positive Indicators of Adolescent Development: Redressing the Negative Image of American Adolescents" (Takanishi, Mortimer, and Timothy McGourthy); (21) "The Status of Adolescent Problem Behavior Indicators" (Kennedy and Prothrow-Stith); (22) "Potential and Problems in Developing Indicators on Child Well-Being from Administrative Data" (George); (23) "Context and Connection in Social Indicators: Enhancing What We Measure and Monitor" (Miringoff and Miringoff); and (24) "Children in Dire Straits: How Do We Know Whether We Are Progressing?" (Prosser and Stagner). Each chapter contains references. (HTH)