The Third National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW III): Design Overview, Methodological Challenges, and Lessons Learned from the Baseline Wave

The goals of this research brief are to describe the design of the third NSCAW cohort, including methodological challenges and lessons learned from the baseline wave, and analytic opportunities for researchers interested in accessing the NSCAW III data. 

• New design features of NSCAW III include expanding the study population to include children who enter CWS custody without a maltreatment investigation; merging Medicaid claims data with survey data for children covered by Medicaid; and oversampling older children, ages 12 to 17, who are more likely to enter and remain in foster care or group homes.  

• Sampling and recruitment challenges encountered during NSCAW III included more states having confidentiality statues that precluded their participation in NSCAW and higher than expected state and agency level refusals. These were mitigated by adding a supplemental sample of U.S. counties and through weighting adjustments. 

• Baseline wave data collection challenges included families’ use of call screening and accessing and gaining the cooperation of older youth. To mitigate these challenges, in-person contacts were increased to introduce families to the study, text messaging was used to contact families, and adolescent-specific recruitment materials and non-monetary incentives were used. 

• NSCAW III includes new analysis opportunities for researchers, including expanded opportunities to analyze various types of caregivers including informal kinship caregivers. New items and instruments were added to the child (e.g., peer relationships, human trafficking), caregiver (e.g., mental health and functioning, economic strain), and caseworker (e.g., caregiver substance abuse treatment, child juvenile justice involvement) surveys to enhance the utility of the archived dataset. 

NSCAW III includes 3,298 children ranging in age from 0 to 17.5 years at the time of sampling in 61 counties and 17 states. Children were sampled from participating state and county child welfare agencies between July 2017 and September 2021. Baseline data collection began in November 2017 and was completed in March 2022. Data were collected in person with children, caregivers, and caseworkers. Unlike prior cohorts, NSCAW III sampling was spread over many months, causing a longer baseline period (approximately four years) than in previous cohorts. This longer timeframe for data collection was due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, which halted all data collection from March 2020 to May 2021. 

Data from NSCAW I, NSCAW II, and NSCAW III are archived in the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN). Detailed information about the survey design, manuals, and codebooks are available for restricted release download to researchers who are approved to use the data, see User Support: National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN) (hhs.gov) .  

Armstrong, J.M., Dolan, M., Biemer, P., Ringeisen, H., Testa, M., Kenney, J., Casanueva, C., Smith, K., Day, O. (2024). The Third National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW III): Design Overview, Methodological Challenges, and Lessons Learned from the Baseline Wave. OPRE Report #2024-040. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.