and gaps for measuring the influences discussed in Chapter 3. Chapters 4 and 5 focus primarily on available national data.

Chapter 6 discusses data systems, outlines the value of data integration, and presents strategies to begin to develop improved data systems, including discussion of the ethical, technical, and political challenges inherent in these strategies. This chapter introduces the potential value to state and local policymakers of improved use of available state-level data.

Chapter 7 presents the committee’s conclusions and recommendations. This chapter focuses on what can be done at the federal, state, and local levels to improve children’s health by advancing efforts to measure and use information on children’s health and its influences. This final chapter also outlines the committee’s recommendations aimed at improving knowledge of how various factors interact to affect health and their relative importance.

Finally, several appendixes follow the body of the report. Appendix A provides short descriptions of existing core datasets for measuring children’s health and compares them based on periodicity, age, and geographic level surveyed. Appendix B examines the extent to which current major surveys capture data on children’s health and its influences and provides a comparison across surveys in both narrative and tabular form. Appendix C presents information on national-level syntheses that use secondary data to track multiple indicators over time and examples of the indicators they track. The glossary in Appendix D defines frequently used terms, Appendix E identifies acronyms referred to in the text, and Appendix F provides biographical sketches of the committee members and staff responsible for the report.