Development and implementation of health targets for children and adolescents. What contribution can the Robert Koch Institute's National Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS) make?

Health targets are increasingly becoming a health-policy control instrument, both nationally and internationally. In the project gesundheitsziele. de, targets have been formulated for children and adolescents in Germany-currently in the areas of nutrition, exercise, and stress management. Implementing and evaluating health targets requires regularly updated, informative data that allow a comprehensive and precise description of the relevant problems and developments. The Robert Koch Institute's National Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents-conducted during the period from 2003 to 2006-provides a pool of data with information on virtually all facets of health development during childhood and adolescence which can be used to determine the starting point of the health-targeting process. This article describes the data provided by the survey of the areas nutrition, exercise, and stress management and the contribution these data could make towards further developing and implementing the health targets for children and adolescents.