This is the second excellent volume in the American Medical Association's Adolescent Health Series. This series attempts to provide "references for planning, advocacy, teaching, and community education." As such, it succeeds marvelously. This slim reference is full of useful facts, tables, charts, and policy information. The first volume in the series addressed how healthy American youths are, and reviewed the physical, psychologic, and sociologic morbidity and mortality facing American teenagers. The volume goes beyond the epidemiology of health status and risky behavior to address use of health services, insurance status, problems of access due to inadequate insurance, and the nonfinancial barriers adolescents face in obtaining health care. The authors introduce each chapter by posing a set of questions that they answer later in the chapter. They have combined complex statistics from many sources in easily understood tables and graphs. The definitions used are explained well, making the text equally understandable