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Created by the Foundation for Child Development, the Child and Youth Well-Being Index Project (CWI) at Duke University measures trends over time in the quality of life of America’s children from birth to age 18. The CWI tracks changes in the well-being of children annually as compared to the 1975 base-year values. The purpose of the CWI is to observe the changes in child well-being, improvements or deterioration, and by which domains. The index is based on seven Quality-of-Life/Well-Being domains. The domains are: Family Economic Well-Being, Safe/Risky Behavior, Social Relationships, Emotional/Spiritual Well-Being, Community Engagement, Educational Attainment, and Health. A numerical value above 100 indicates an improvement in overall child and youth well-being, as compared to the 1975 base-year values.

Last week, The Foundation for Child Development released the most recent report on the CWI.  The event outlined the major trends in the 2013 update, Measuring 37 Year Trends: 1975-2012.  The report showed little change in the overall CWI for the years 2010-2012.When looking at the predominant long-term trend in the CWI there is also little overall improvement, as compared to the 1975 baseline.

• Key indicators, such as child poverty, decreases in secure parental employment, and median income, show that families with children under the age of 18 had a decade-long decline in the Family Economic Well-Being domain, which was further exacerbated by the 2008-2009 Great Recession. In 2011 and 2012, there were slight improvements; however, the values remained lower than those at the1975 baseline.
• The Safe/Risky Behavior domain continues to show improvement, as a result of large declines in key indicators, such as teenage birth rates, violent crime victimizations (which declined from 1991-2011), and violent crime offending (which declined from 1993-2010).
• There is a continued increase in the Community Engagement domain. The CWI measures whether children and youth are more connected to their community in social institutions by increases in college graduation rates, modest increases in high school graduation rates, higher increases in prekindergarten enrollment, rates of voting in presidential elections and the rate of youth not participating in school or work (the last two indicators either stayed the same as the baseline or decreased slightly).
• There has been a slight improvement in the Educational Attainment domain over the 37 years of study, measured by the combined index of reading and mathematics test scores from 100 in 1975 to 104.3 in 2012.
• The Social Relationships domain decreased from 1976 to 1997, primarily due to increases in the rate of children living in single-parent families.
• There was an increased trend in suicide rates for children and youth ages 10-19 during the late 1980s, and a decline in religious participation, which led to large declines in the Emotional/Spiritual Well-Being domain.
• Obesity rates contributed to the decline in the Health domain from 1975-2009. There have been modest improvements since 2009, but it is still considerably lower than the base line value.

Overall child well-being went down in 2012 at 99.7.  Since 1975, child well-being overall has been reduced with the high point of the index at 113 in 2000 and the low point at 89.9 in 1983. The index is an important tool in demonstrating the areas of improvements we have seen as well as the areas that require more attention, including support from policymakers. In order to achieve positive outcomes for children and families it is essential for policymakers to prioritize and invest in the domains that lead to child well-being.

For more information about the Child and Youth Well-Being Index, click here.

For complementary information on the importance of child well-being, please read Raising the Bar: Child Welfare’s Shift Toward Well-Being and our report on Supporting Early Healthy Development.