Families influence their children's health in two ways that are amenable to public policy- through their financial and other investments in children, and through the quality of care that they provide. In general, children who receive more resources or better parenting are healthier than those who don't. Public policies, therefore, might improve…

Fred Wulczyn explores how data on the incidence and distribution of child maltreatment shed light on planning and implementing maltreatment prevention programs. He begins by describing and differentiating among the three primary sources of national data on maltreatment. Wulczyn then points out several important patterns in the data. The first…