CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
A Quick and Dirty take on NIS-4
Sedlak, A.J., Mettenburg, J., Basena, M., Petta, I., McPherson, K., Greene, A., and Li, S. (2010). Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS–4): Report to Congress.
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.
Sedlak, A.J., McPherson, K., & Das, B. (2010). Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS–4): Supplementary Analyses of Race Differences in Child Maltreatment Rates in the
NIS-4. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.
Barbara Needell, MSW, PhDUniversity of California at Berkeley
CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
What is the NIS?
• National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect
• Primary objectives – Provide updated estimates of the incidence of child abuse and neglect in the U.S. and measure changes in incidence from earlier studies
• Data comes from both CPS reports and “sentinels”
CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
NIS-4 Overview
• Data from a nationally representative sample of 122 counties with 126 CPS agencies
• Two definitional standards of maltreatment used: Harm Standard and Endangerment Standard
• NIS-4 was the first NIS cycle to observe “significant” differences in maltreatment rates according to race
CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
Why did the NIS-4 find differences by race (according to the NIS-4 authors)?
• Changes in circumstances for Black and White children from NIS-3 to NIS-4
• NIS-4 had higher precision of estimates of maltreatment than NIS-3
CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
Changes in Circumstances – Economic
CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
Precision of Estimates
CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
What Changed Between NIS-3 and NIS-4?• Both White and Black Children showed substantial
decrease in maltreatment rates over time • % change in rate of White harm standard
maltreatment from NIS-3 = -32%• % change in rate of Black harm standard
maltreatment from NIS-3 = -24% • A steeper decrease for White Children smaller CIs
result in “new” differences by race
CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
Supplementary Analysis• In NIS-4, a SES measure was constructed with 2
categories: -“low” (parents with no high school diploma, less than $15,000 income, or participation in a poverty program) -“not-low” (everybody else)
• There was a large amount of missing SES data that had to be imputed (44.9%!!!)
CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
Race Differences and SES• The supplementary report notes that income, or
SES, is biggest predictor of maltreatment rates• Many of the race differences in maltreatment rates
emerged primarily for physical abuse and were related to SES status
• Differences by race were small to nonexistent among children from “low” SES household, but larger among children in “not-low” SES households
CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
…in their own words“Independent evidence indicates that Black and White children very probably have different underlying SES distributions within the NIS–4 non-low SES category, with the not-low SES Black children less well off than the not-low SES White children. If the economic resources of Black and White children had been equivalent in this condition, then the observed pattern of higher risk for Black children under non-low SES conditions may not have emerged. For these reasons, the race differences observed in the not-low SES condition in this report must be interpreted with caution. “ (italics mine)
CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
Why did the NIS-4 find differences by race?
More Precise Maltreatment Estimates
Imprecise SES Measures
Newly DiscoveredDifferences in
Maltreatment RatesBy Race
CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
Summary/Conclusions
• The “increased precision” explanation raises questions about the widespread interpretation of earlier NIS reports
• The “income gap” explanation is not yet generally accepted as valid and is under scrutiny
• We do not know from NIS-4 if differences would exist independent of SES if more precise demographic measures were used
CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
IMHO
• It was wrong to use NIS-1,2,3 to “justify” the need for racial disparities work
• It is becoming increasingly clear that SES and race interact
• “Why are people poor?” (Undoing Racism trainings) is a very good question, and may hold the key to any understanding of the lack of difference for poor children
• The work remains
CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley
Barbara [email protected]
510 290 6334
CSSR.BERKELEY.EDU/UCB_CHILDWELFARE
Presentation Developed by Erin Clark