Reporting of Child Maltreatment During the COVID-19 Pandemic in a Southern State in the United States.

OBJECTIVES: COVID-19-related stay-at-home orders (SAHOs) created an immediate physical barrier between children and professionals such as pediatricians and teachers, who are often first to identify and report signs of child maltreatment. Our objective was to determine how the SAHO in a southern state was associated with reports of child maltreatment and whether this association was modified by sociodemographic characteristics. METHODS: We linked data on reports of child maltreatment from a southern state in the United States from October 1, 2018, through September 30, 2020, to data from the US Census Bureau to obtain data on county-level socioeconomic characteristics. We fit a segmented regression model to evaluate changes in reports before and after the SAHO, March 20, 2020. We evaluated potential disparities by child age, case and allegation severity, and socioeconomic characteristics. RESULTS: Of 374 885 hotline calls, 276 878 (73.9%) were made before the SAHO and 98 007 (26.1%) after it. Although an immediate decrease in reports of child maltreatment occurred on the day of the SAHO, the rates of reporting within socioeconomic groups started increasing thereafter. While we found no significant change in the overall rate of change in hotline calls after versus before the SAHO (0.23; 95% CI, -0.11 to 0.58), stratified analyses indicate that the rates at which reporting increased varied by education level, health insurance coverage, median annual household income, and unemployment. CONCLUSIONS: Evaluating these trends is important for policy makers and practitioners to understand how policies enforced during the pandemic influence child maltreatment reporting and how these policies may affect reporting differently across socioeconomic groups.

Applying principles from safety science to improve child protection.

Child Protective Services Agencies (CPSAs) share many characteristics with other organizations operating in high-risk, high-profile industries. Over the past 50 years, industries as diverse as aviation, nuclear power, and healthcare have applied principles from safety science to improve practice. The current paper describes the rationale, characteristics, and challenges of applying concepts from the safety culture literature to CPSAs. Preliminary efforts to apply key principles aimed at improving child safety and well-being in two states are also presented.

Sleep and school problems among children and adolescents in state custody.

Population-level research into the association between sleep problems and school problems among high-risk youth is limited. This study uses cross-sectional administrative and standardized assessment information for youth entering Tennessee state custody in fiscal year 2009 (n = 4280) to examine whether sleep problems are independently associated with school problems. Sleep problems were identified in 9.8% of the sample. There was no association between sleep and school problems for youth adjudicated delinquent. Among youth adjudicated dependent-neglect/unruly, multivariate logistic regression analysis indicates that youth at risk for sleep problems are 1.78 (95% confidence interval = 1.24-2.55) and youth with actionable sleep problems are 3.30 (95% confidence interval = 1.78-6.14) times more likely than youth without sleep problems to have school problems. Results suggest that the school performance of youth entering state custody adjudicated dependent-neglect/unruly may benefit from systematic screening and intervention for sleep problems.

Psychopharmaceutical Prescription Monitoring for Children in the Child Welfare System.

OBJECTIVE: Children in the child welfare system are more likely to receive psychotropic medication prescriptions than children in the general population. The authors used prescription- and administrative-level data to quantify variability in prescribing practices among prescribers for the child welfare population in a southern U.S. state. METHODS: Using administrative- and prescription-level child data and Administration on Children, Youth and Families guidelines, the authors defined the primary outcome, potentially inappropriate psychotropic prescriptions (i.e., red-flagged prescriptions). A hierarchical-logistic regression model was fit to account for case complexity and estimate the adjusted probability of a prescription being red-flagged. A funnel plot was used to visualize standardized prescribing rates for every prescriber and identify outlying prescribers. RESULTS: From May 2016 to September 2017, 506 prescribers issued 64,923 prescriptions for 4,093 children with a median (interquartile range) age of 14 (10-16) years. Most prescribers (76.9%) issued at least one red-flagged prescription, 1,263 (30.9%) children received at least one red-flagged prescription, and 14,806 (22.8%) prescriptions were red-flagged. The standardized prescribing rate for each prescriber was compared with a benchmark of 22.8%, defined a priori as the proportion of red-flagged prescriptions in the overall sample. Forty-seven prescribers (9%) prescribed red-flagged prescriptions between two and three standard deviations above the benchmark, and 72 prescribers (14%) more than three standard deviations above the benchmark. CONCLUSIONS: It is vital to monitor psychotropic prescriptions for children in the child welfare system. Quantifying variability in prescribing practices among prescribers for these children might be used to guide oversight.

Incidence and neighborhood-level determinants of child welfare involvement.

BACKGROUND: Child maltreatment is a global public health issue that has been linked with multiple negative health and life outcomes. OBJECTIVE: This study evaluates the association between children placed in out-of-home care and neighborhood-level factors using eight years of administrative data. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: Between 2011-2018, 33,890 unique instances of child welfare involvement were captured in a department of child and family services database in a southern state in the United States. METHODS: Removal addresses were geocoded and linked to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey to obtain census tract socioeconomic factors. Incidence overall and stratified by individual and neighborhood-level factors was computed. Rate ratios, relative indexes of inequality, and concentration curves quantified disparities in incidence of child welfare involvement by neighborhood-level factors. RESULTS: Incidence of children less than 19 years old placed into out-of-home care was 255 per 100,000 person-years (95 % CI: 252, 258). At the individual level, incidence was highest among children <5 and 15-17 years old, comparable between male and female children, and higher among Black children. At the neighborhood level, incidence was highest in census tracts with lower median household incomes, higher percentages of households below poverty or of female-headed or single-parent households, higher unemployment rates, and fewer residents with some college education or health insurance. CONCLUSIONS: Incidence of children placed into out-of-home care is disproportionally higher for those who live in disadvantaged communities. Understanding neighborhood-level risk factors that may be linked to child welfare involvement can help inform policy and target prevention efforts.

A population-based examination of maltreatment referrals and substantiation for children with autism spectrum disorder.

Children with disabilities experience elevated rates of maltreatment, but little is known about the interaction of children with autism spectrum disorder with child protection systems. A population-based dataset of 24,306 children born in 2008 in Tennessee, which included 387 children with autism spectrum disorder identified through the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring network, was linked with state child protection records. Rates of maltreatment referrals, screening for further action, and substantiated maltreatment were examined for children with versus without autism spectrum disorder. Significantly more children with autism spectrum disorder (17.3%) than without (7.4%) were referred to the Child Abuse Hotline. Children with autism spectrum disorder were less likely than children without autism spectrum disorder to have referrals screened in for further action (62% vs 91.6%, respectively), but substantiated maltreatment rates were similar across groups (3.9% vs 3.4%, respectively). Girls versus boys with autism spectrum disorder were more likely to have substantiated maltreatment (13.6% vs 1.9%, respectively). The high percentage of children with autism spectrum disorder referred for allegations of maltreatment, the differential pattern of screening referrals in for further action, and the high levels of substantiated maltreatment of girls with autism spectrum disorder highlights the need for enhanced training and knowledge of the complex issues faced by children with autism spectrum disorder, their families, and state welfare agencies.