Child Trends Research Brief

Posted by on August 1, 2003

Child Trends has just released a new research brief entitled “How children are doing: The mismatch between public perception and statistical reality.” The brief is available at the following link: http://www.childtrends.org/PDF/PublicPerceptionsRB.pdf

The brief examines how well public perception matches official data on the well-being of children. Polls were conducted with a nationally representative sample of adults in order to obtain their best estimates of children’s demographic and social characteristics. Some interesting results:

–66% of adults surveyed believed that over the past 10 years, the percentage of teens who commit violent crimes has increased (in reality, it has decreased and reached the lowest level in more than 25 years).

–45% of the adults surveyed believed that the teen birth rate has increased over the past five years. (In reality, it has decreased by 16% percent between 1996 and 2001).

The authors describe variations in these perceptions by background factors such as marital status, area of residence, educational attainment, and gender. They also discuss implications for public policy.