Contact with the child protection system is pervasive, but are recent estimates correct?
Brief Report
July 19, 2021
Letter
November 29, 2021
Letter
November 29, 2021
Edwards et al. (1) use synthetic cohort life tables to produce county-level estimates of the cumulative prevalence of contact with Child Protective Services (CPS) in the 20 most populous counties in the United States. Their findings are generated from state records of maltreatment submitted to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) and foster care records submitted to the federal Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) (2, 3). Documenting lifetime CPS involvement is an incredibly important contribution to the literature (4–8). Cumulative estimates, however, are vulnerable to significant misestimation if first events are not accurately identified (9). And documenting a child’s first investigation, even within a state, poses unique challenges in national CPS data sources (4).
We use source CPS records from California to reproduce estimates for 7 of 20 counties in Edwards et al.’s (1) analysis. Our findings suggest that the cumulative prevalence of children investigated for maltreatment has been significantly overestimated (Fig. 1). For example, Edwards et al. estimate that 72% of Black children in Los Angeles will experience an investigation during childhood. Using their code, but drawing upon data that allow us to longitudinally observe a child’s combined investigation history under a single unique identifier, our estimate was significantly lower: 46% of Black children. Although we do not have data to make comparisons for non-California counties, we have no reason to think that those investigation estimates are not similarly compromised.
Fig. 1.
Importantly, our analysis serves to largely validate estimates of “confirmed victims.” This is not surprising: States include, in their submissions to NCANDS, an indicator documenting whether a child was a “prior victim.” Likewise, AFCARS includes a foster care episode counter, and terminations of parental rights are unique events (5)—and we find that estimates generated using California source records generally align with those that were published. We do, however, observe unexplained differences in foster care entries for Black children. Counts released by Edwards et al. (1) suggest an unusual number of first entries estimated for adolescents, but only in 2014–2016. Documentation (3) indicates that there was a change in how duplicated records were reconciled in AFCARS submissions prior to 2005, which could contribute to inflated estimates for adolescents in 2014–2016, specifically. Further examination may be warranted.
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In closing, we must acknowledge the seeming absurdity of questioning whether it is nearly 75% of Black children investigated in a given county during childhood or almost 50%, but the accuracy of these numbers matters. If a significant misestimation of investigation risk is allowed to stand without correction, it will erode trust in important sources of administrative data that can—and should—guide policy reforms. We hope that the comparisons presented here will provoke further examinations of data from other states, while also advancing important conversations around the structure and approach to state data submissions to NCANDS and AFCARS.
References
1
F. Edwards, S. Wakefield, K. Healy, C. Wildeman, Contact with Child Protective Services is pervasive but unequally distributed by race and ethnicity in large US counties. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 118, e2106272118 (2021).
2
National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect, National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) Child File FFY 2018. https:www.ndacan.acf.hhs.gov/datasets/dataset-details.cfm?ID=233. Accessed 3 August 2021.
3
National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect, AFCARS Foster Care Annual File User’s Guide. https://www.ndacan.acf.hhs.gov/datasets/pdfs_user_guides/afcars-foster-care-users-guide-2000-present.pdf. Accessed 3 August 2021.
4
H. Kim, C. Wildeman, M. Jonson-reid, B. Drake. Lifetime prevalence of investigating child maltreatment among US children. Am. J. Public Health 107, 274–280 (2017).
5
C. Wildeman, F. R. Edwards, S. Wakefield, The cumulative prevalence of termination of parental rights for U.S. children, 2000–2016. Child Maltreat. 25, 32–42 (2020).
6
C. Wildeman, N. Emanuel, Cumulative risks of foster care placement by age 18 for U.S. children, 2000-2011. PloS One 9, e92785 (2014).
7
C. Wildeman et al., The prevalence of confirmed maltreatment among US children, 2004 to 2011. JAMA Pediatr. 168, 706–713 (2014).
8
E. Putnam-Hornstein et al., Cumulative rates of child protection involvement and terminations of parental rights in a California birth cohort, 1999–2017. Am. J. Public Health 111, 1157–1163 (2021).
9
K. Namboodiri, C. M. Suchindran, Life Table Techniques and Their Applications (Academic, 1987).
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© 2021. Published under the PNAS license.
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Published online: November 29, 2021
Published in issue: December 7, 2021
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The authors declare no competing interest.
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