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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Reduce the proportion of children with a parent or guardian who has served time in jail or prison — SDOH‑05 Data Methodology and Measurement

On this page:  About this objective  |  Methodology  |  History

About this objective

Data

Data Source:  National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH), HRSA/MCHB

National baseline: 7.6 percent of children aged 17 years and under had ever experienced a parent or guardian serving time in jail or prison in 2016-17

National target: 5.2 percent

Numerator
Number of children aged 17 years and under who ever experienced a parent or guardian serving time in jail or prison.
Denominator
Number of children aged 17 years and under.
National target-setting method
Percentage point improvement
National target-setting method details
Percentage point improvement from the baseline using Cohen's h effect size of 0.10.
1
National target-setting method justification
Trend data were not available for this objective. A percentage point improvement was calculated using Cohen's h effect size of 0.1. This method was used because improvement would facilitate well-being and improve health access for children.

Methodology

Questions used to obtain the national baseline data

(For additional information, please visit the data source page linked above.)

From the National Survey of Children's Health:

The next questions are about events that may have happened this child's life. These things can happen in any family, but some people may feel uncomfortable with these questions. You may skip any questions you do not want to answer.

To the best of your knowledge, has this child EVER experienced any of the following?
Parent or guardian served time in jail or prison?
  1. Yes
  2. No

Methodology notes

The National Survey of Children's Health is an address-based, self-administered survey completed via web or paper by a parent/caregiver knowledgeable about the health and health care of one randomly selected child in the household.

Due to imputation and weighting revisions of the 2016 through 2021 NSCH data, all years of data for this measure have been revised accordingly. For more information on revisions see the NSCH_Weighting_Revisions.pdf.

History

Comparable HP2020 objective
Modified, which includes core objectives that are continuing from Healthy People 2020 but underwent a change in measurement.
Changes between HP2020 and HP2030
This objective differs from Healthy People 2020 objective SDOH-5 in that the tracking data for SDOH-5 are not comparable to the tracking data for this objective due to the 2016 redesign of the National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH).
Revision History
Revised. 

In 2025, the baseline value was revised from 7.7% to 7.6% in 2016-17 due to imputation and weighting revisions. All data through the most current data year (2022-23) were also revised.

1. Effect size h=0.1 was chosen to correspond with 10% improvement from a baseline of 50%.