CHAPTER 6 ADDITIONAL RESEARCH BASED ON NCANDS DATA

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CHAPTER 6
ADDITIONAL RESEARCH BASED ON NCANDS DATA

This report has presented national data related to child abuse and neglect for 1999, trends in annual victimization rates, and information on the factors that underlie these data. In this chapter, six examples of additional analyses that examine child maltreatment in terms of relationships with other types of data or from other analytical perspectives are discussed. Suggestions for future research topics also are given.

RESEARCH ON REPORTS

All States have enacted mandated reporting laws for certain professionals (medical, educational, legal, and social services personnel) who come into contact with children to report suspected maltreatment. Despite these mandated reporting laws, child maltreatment reporting remains a poorly understood phenomenon due, in part, to the limited understanding of the reporting process. Little is known about the impact of mandated reporting laws on the various groups legally obligated to report suspected maltreatment. A study of the significant differences in the characteristics of cases among reporter groups is being undertaken using multi-state case-level data. Preliminary findings include the following:

Educational personnel tended to report older children as compared to other report sources.
Medical personnel reported more African-American children as compared to the other report source groups.
Reports of child maltreatment made by legal personnel were substantiated 71 percent of the time.

Data analysis of substantiated cases reported by the four reporter groups also indicated many interesting differences:

Medical personnel tended to report the youngest children and educational personnel the oldest.
Almost half of maltreatment cases reported by educational personnel involved physical abuse, which was significantly higher than all other report sources.
Medical personnel reported the highest percentage of cases that involved medical neglect. Seventeen percent of the cases reported by social service personnel involved sexual abuse, which was significantly higher than all other report sources.

Additionally, results from the analysis of the substantiated maltreatment cases indicated that each reporter group tended to report a certain type of maltreatment more than the other reporter groups. This seems to suggest a "partitioning" of maltreatment reporting among the four mandated reporters. This finding is serious when the differences in substantiation rates among the four report source groups also are considered.

Future data analysis will examine whether these differences are consistent over time as 3 years of data are examined.

For further information, contact:
John E. Kesner, Ph.D.
Department of Early Childhood Education
Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
404-651-2987
ECEJEK@langate.gsu.edu

A second study, funded by a grant from Children's Bureau addresses the analysis of unsubstantiated dispositions in a multi-State context. The objectives are to develop an understanding of how law, policy, practice, case, and decision-maker characteristics are related to unsubstantiated disposition distributions and unsubstantiated disposition outcomes and the extent to which they are similar or different across States.

There are four study areas: 1) definitional structure, 2) patterns and trends across State disposition distributions, 3) decision-making, and 4) outcome. Interrelated designs for each area include: 1) an examination of law and policy documents across all States, 2) surveys and interviews with State-level administrators and managers in 15 States, 3) the use of the SDC cross-sectionally and over time, 4) surveys of workers and supervisors in three volunteer States, and 5) the application of DCDC to construct and analyze re-reporting outcomes for unsubstantiated reports in the three volunteer States.

Results to date suggest that at least some aspects of policy appear to be related to variations in unsubstantiation across States and over time. Specifically:

States in which there are a number of options for dealing with less clear-cut cases (e.g., an "indicated" or "unable to determine" category or an alternative response track) had lower percentages of unsubstantiated investigations and unsubstantiated children in investigations than two-tier States.
Differences associated with the number of options for dealing with uncertainty were smaller when there was a clear standard of evidence required to substantiate that is stated in policy.
Changes in States' dispositional structures and definitions over time were related to changes in percentages of unsubstantiation.

Future analyses will focus on the relationship of worker and supervisor characteristics and job perceptions to case level unsubstantiation percentages and recurrence outcomes.

For further information, contact:
Cynthia F. Parry, Ph.D.
Director of Research
American Humane Association
63 Inverness Drive East
Englewood, CO 80112-5117
303-925-9414
cparry@americanhumane.org

RESEARCH ON VICTIMS

Data from CPS agencies across the country indicate that the increase in sexual abuse in the 1980s has turned into an extensive period of marked decline in the 1990s. Trend data from the SDC were used, in addition to other sources of data, to examine this decline.

Key findings include:

Substantiated cases of sexual abuse decreased from an estimated national peak of 149,800 cases in 1992 to 103,600 cases in 1998, a decline of 31 percent.
Thirty-six of 47 States recorded a decline of more than 30 percent since their peak year. The average decline for all States was 37 percent, but there was no clear regional pattern.
For most States, the decline was gradual, rather than abrupt, and occurred over several years.
Reports alleging sexual abuse also have decreased from an estimated 429,000 in 1991 to 315,400 in 1998, a 26-percent decline.

The study suggests several possible reasons for the decline, including a decline in the incidence of sexual abuse among the general population and attitudinal or policy changes that may have influenced the amount of sexual abuse reported, accepted for investigation, and substantiated.

The full study will be published as a Bulletin of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

For further information, contact:
Lisa Jones, Ph.D.
David Finkelhor, Ph.D.
Crimes Against Children Research Center
126 Horton Social Science Center
University of New Hampshire
Durham, NH 03824
603-862-2761
lmjones@cisunix.unh.edu

To determine whether different types of children suffer from multiple forms of maltreatment within a reported incident, a national data set provides a unique opportunity to view the events across States and across years. The current study examines child age and child sex within cohorts of administrative data for States as a function of whether or not the child was determined to have suffered from ore than one form of maltreatment. Many studies that address maltreatment types do so in the context of a single or pure maltreatment type. This provides an illusion of methodological control. Similarly, many administrative data sets only record a single or primary maltreatment.

Multiple maltreatment has been used in four ways in the literature. The first definition is that a child may be victimized in more than one incident. This first definition is described as "recurrence." A second definition is that a child may be victimized in another incident after services have been received and the service episode or case has been closed. The term "recidivism" is used to describe this second form. Clinical evaluation studies use a third definition of multiple maltreatment that refers to more than one instance and one type of maltreatment occurring in a victim's life. Neither number of instances nor number of types of maltreatment is distinguished. A fourth definition of multiple maltreatment is the co-occurrence of multiple maltreatment types within a single incident of victimization. This fourth definition is the operational definition of multiple maltreatment in this study.

Multiple maltreatment is a particularly good topic for analysis using the Detailed Case Data Component (DCDC) of the NCANDS because it allows examination of client characteristics as a function of maltreatment types across the different States. All forms of single and multiple maltreatments may potentially exist, with the exception of the quintuple forms of maltreatment because only four are captured in the file structure used by States to submit DCDC data. The current study examines child age and child sex within cohorts of administrative data for States. Three calendar years of data are examined. The anticipated finding of this study is that significant patterns of child age and sex emerge as a function of multiple maltreatment, and that these differences are consistent across States. Research findings will be presented at the 13th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect in April 2001.

For further information contact
Myles T. Edwards, Ph.D.
American Humane Association
63 Inverness Drive East
Englewood, CO 80112
(303) 792-9900
myles@amerhumane.org

RESEARCH ON SERVICES

Two studies have examined the delivery of services to children who have been reported to the local CPS agency.

The first study used data on children who were the subject of a report alleging child maltreatment from eight States that submitted data for the 1995-1998 reporting years in order to examine the influence of various factors, including the provision of services, on 12-month recurrence rates. Analyses examined such factors as child's age, child's race, parents' ages, family income, prior maltreatment, substance abuse, foster care placement, family size, rural households, and type of maltreatment upon recurrence. Two of the main findings were:

In general, the provision of social services increased the reported counts of substantiated maltreatment and the percentage of subsequent reports that were substantiated. This is considered the "surveillance effect," i.e., the provision of services also may have a case-finding function in that because workers have access to families, the workers are more knowledgeable about the conditions of the family.
When counties were compared along a scale of service provision, those counties that provided more services than the mean level of service provision had lower recurrence rates. In such counties, neglect victims had significantly lower recurrence rates, while physical abuse and sexual abuse victims did not have significant differences in recurrence rates.

The study demonstrates that service provision can reduce the rate of recurrence, but that such a goal must take into consideration the impact of added surveillance through social service provision, which leads to increased recurrence. Thus the recurrence rates should be adjusted for the impact of surveillance in their calculation.

For further information, contact:
Jeffrey K. Johnson, M.A.
Walter R. McDonald & Associates, Inc.
7311 Greenhaven Drive, Suite 273
Sacramento, CA 95831
916-427-1410
jjohnson@wrma.com

The second study used the DCDC data in two separate but complementary analyses to better understand the patterns of child welfare services for children of color.¹

In a multivariate county-level analysis, substantiation rates following child abuse or neglect reports and removal rates following the substantiation of maltreatment were examined in about 700 counties. The dependent variables were the difference between the ratio of the number of African-American children substantiated for abuse and neglect and the number in the general population, and the same ratio for white children. Local community data, which were compiled for the sampling process undertaken during the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well Being, were used as controls. These included rates or proportions of African-American children in the county, mortality, inadequate initiation and receipt of prenatal care, newborns with birth weights less than 2,500 grams, violent crime, urbanicity, county size, and median family income. County-level data also were coded with the appropriate State identifier. Using a statistical program that controls for conjoint dependencies between counties in the same State, race was found to be a significant contributor to the substantiation decision, but not to the removal of a child. However, other county characteristics were significant, suggesting that child welfare involvement may be influenced by county characteristics. Findings varied among the States when compared to a selected comparison State.

In the second analysis, individual child characteristics, such as age, gender, and reason for report, were used. Race appeared to have a significant impact on the likelihood of substantiation and placement when only individual data were used, but this impact faded as more contextual characteristics were entered into the analysis. Controlling for contextual variables, race continued to have a significant relationship to substantiation but not to removal. Preliminary findings suggest that African-American children are less likely than children of other races to receive services in larger counties, in which they have poor health and mortality outcomes.

Taken together these findings suggest that, contrary to general belief, when many factors are considered, African-American children are not overserved or over involved in the child welfare system. There is at least as much evidence to support the notion that despite living under conditions of great risk, African-American children do not have significantly greater likelihood of removal.

For further information, contact:
Richard P. Barth, Ph.D.
School of Social Work
301 Pittsboro Road
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3550
919-962-6516
rbarth@unc.edu

FUTURE AVENUES OF INVESTIGATION

Some topics of interest for future research or program planning and review are briefly discussed below:

Fatalities-A fatality database is being constructed and should be available through the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data Archive by Winter 2001. This database will include information on all child fatalities that have been reported between 1997 and 1999 to the DCDC. Data on approximately 1,000 children will be included. Research into the characteristics of these children, especially in terms of their ages, their relationships to other children in the family, and their relationships to their perpetrators, is of interest to those who are trying to understand this phenomenon compared to other types of homicides of children and youth, as well as those interested in designing prevention strategies.
Perpetrators-Analysis of perpetrator data poses complexities in terms of "unit of count." Perpetrators can be counted as unique individuals in terms of multiple relationships to all victimized children in a report or across reports, or in terms of each of the maltreatments that they inflict on each child, regardless of how many times they are involved with the child. A new perpetrator file of 1998-1999 data will be available from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data Archive in Fall 2001. This database will enable researchers to more fully examine the characteristics of perpetrators and address additional multivariate analyses.
Service Patterns-While the research discussed in this report begins to examine the patterns of service delivery to victims of maltreatment, the topic requires continued exploration in order to replicate results and to identify the most critical factors. Although there are limitations of the amount of service data available in the NCANDS, improved consistency of reporting among States in forthcoming years will provide additional data for understanding the conditions under which services are provided to victims and the impact of these services.

Researchers interested in pursing these or other topics based on the NCANDS data should contact the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect, which is maintained by the Family Life Development Center, New York State College of Human Ecology, Cornell University, under a cooperative agreement with the Children's Bureau. The Archive provides technical assistance and training on the use of child welfare data. It maintains annual DCDC data and in the future will archive the SDC multiyear data set. Intensive training is provided at a 1-week Summer Institute in June of each year. (Contact information is provided on the inside cover of this report.)

Footnotes

¹This research is funded under a contract of the Research Triangle Institute and the University of North Carolina School of Social Work with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, by the Research Triangle Institute and the University of North Carolina School of Social Work