Children who experience foster care, write Youngmin Yi and Christopher Wildeman, are considerably more likely than others to have contact with the criminal justice system, both during childhood and as adults. And because children of color disproportionately experience foster care, improvements to the foster care system could reduce racial/ethnic…

A half century ago, relatively few US children experienced the incarceration of a parent. In the decades since, incarceration rates rose rapidly (before leveling off more recently), and today a historically unprecedented number of children are exposed to parental incarceration. In this article, Kristin Turney and Rebecca Goodsell review the…

The past century has seen vast improvements in our children's health. The infectious diseases that once killed huge numbers of children have largely been conquered. Infant mortality has also fallen markedly, although the United States lags behind other industrialized nations in this and other measures of children's health. Accidents and injuries…

Much public attention and many resources are focused on medical research to identify risk factors and mitigate symptoms of disability for individual children. But this focus will inevitably fail to "prevent" disabilities. Stephen Rauch and Bruce Lanphear argue for a broader focus on environmental influences that put entire populations at risk.…

Poor childhood health contributes to lower socioeconomic status in adulthood. Subsequently, low socioeconomic status among parents contributes to poor childhood health outcomes in the next generation. This cycle can be particularly pernicious for vulnerable and low-income minority populations, including many children of immigrants. And because of…

Researchers have long known that poverty in childhood is linked with a range of negative adult socioeconomic outcomes, from lower educational achievement and behavioral problems to lower earnings in the labor market. But few researchers have explored whether exposure to a disadvantaged background affects immigrant children and native children…

Jane Waldfogel, Terry-Ann Craigie, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn review recent studies that use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) to examine why children who grow up in single-mother and cohabiting families fare worse than children born into married-couple households. They also present findings from their own new research.…

Available data on homeless families and children are reviewed, focusing on definitions of homelessness and the most common methods used to estimate the size of the homeless population. Trends in the duration of homelessness and the numbers of families at risk of losing housing are discussed. (SLD)

Identifies health risks and other factors that determine the need for health care services among children and adolescents. Recommendations are made to develop reforms through a coordinated care program rather than through competing systems of services. Models for community-based health care monitoring and coordination exist in other industrialized…

Reviews evidence about health care resources currently available to children and pregnant women in the United States. Evidence suggests that the maldistribution of resources remains a serious threat to health care access for women and children at greatest risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes and child morbidity and mortality. (SLD)

Analyzes annual medical expenditures for childhood (conception through age 18 years). A decline in the relative share of children's medical expenditures means that their health care will become more affordable compared to other groups. The least budget impact will result from expanding insurance coverage for 3- to 12-year-old children. (SLD)

Examines changes in children's health insurance status and utilization of health services in the past decade, using 1977 National Medical Care Expenditure Survey data and 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey data. Policies that could reduce the number of uninsured children (mandated employment-related coverage and incremental Medicaid…

Discusses nonfinancial barriers to receiving medical care, including legal restrictions, geographic isolation and provider shortages, provider practices and policies, and personal circumstances. Suggests ways to reduce these barriers. These efforts should not wait for health care financing reforms, because nonfinancial barriers will continue even…

Several major demographic shifts over the past half-century have transformed who we are and how we live in this country in many ways. Most striking, however, is the fact that children today are much more likely to be members of ethnic or racial minority groups. Racial/ethnic minorities are destined, in aggregate, to become the numerical majority…