the Committee on the Health and Adjustment of Immigrant Children and Families was charged with three tasks:

• To synthesize the relevant research literature and present results from secondary analyses of existing data sets (see National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 1998) to provide demographic descriptions of children in immigrant families;

• To clarify what is known about the varying trajectories that now characterize the families and the development of immigrant children, about the risk and protective factors associated with the differential health and well-being of different immigrant groups, and about the delivery of health and social services to these groups; and

• To assess the adequacy of existing data and make recommendations for new data collection and research to inform and improve public policy and programs.

A large and complex array of conditions can influence the physical and mental health of children, and factors associated with immigration expand the range and complexity of these conditions. Their health and adjustment cannot be addressed without attending to the factors relevant to all children generally; insofar as possible, this report discusses ways in which these factors are similar or different for children in immigrant families and U.S.-born children in U.S.-born families. But we are especially interested in the circumstances that may be particularly relevant to these children, as well as those that may vary greatly across children whose families hail from different continents or countries.

This report does not address many important issues of immigration processes and policies that are not directly linked to the health and adjustment of children in immigrant families, nor does it explore in detail the processes influencing the physical and mental health of children and adolescents generally. For example, the report does not assess the economic, demographic, or fiscal effects of immigration (see National Research Council, 1997). It does not provide an analysis of why the recent changes in welfare policy for immigrants came about, or of their possible effects on