An Index of the Condition of Children: The Ideal and a Less-than-Ideal U.S. Example Kristin Anderson Moore Æ Sharon Vandivere Æ Laura Lippman Æ Cameron McPhee Æ Margot Bloch Accepted: 16 January 2007 / Published online: 26 May 2007 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007 Abstract This paper uses recent data on U.S. children from the National Survey of America’s Families (NSAF) to create indices that tally the number of problems or risks that individual children experience. We compare results with those from indices developed elsewhere that assess the change across sets of population-level indicators. While the two types of indices show similar trends over time, specific changes, as well as trends, depend on the specific domain of well-being or context examined, highlighting the importance of the distinction between well-being and context. Children with problems in multiple domains tend to be socio-economically and demographically disadvantaged compared with other children. We preface this work by providing an overview of the history of child well-being indicators and distinguish indices of child well-being from indices of the condition of children. Keywords Child indicators  Indices  Child well-being  National Survey of America’s Families Social indicators have been used to inform the public and policy makers in the United States for more than seven decades, and indicators of child well-being have been a dis- tinguishable part of the field for more than four decades. During this time, data about children have become increasingly available. While gaps continue to exist (for example, positive outcomes and socioemotional measures are in short supply), many child well- being indicators are now tracked regularly, providing important prevalence and trend data on a multitude of specific topics. This abundance of data about children provides important K. A. Moore (&)  S. Vandivere  L. Lippman  C. McPhee  M. Bloch Child Trends, 4301 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suit 350, Washington, DC 20008, USA e-mail: kmoore@childtrends.org S. Vandivere e-mail: svandivere@childtrends.org L. Lippman e-mail: llippman@childtrends.org 123 Soc Indic Res (2007) 84:291–331 DOI 10.1007/s11205-007-9120-8