Poverty Indicators in the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System Child File: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Purpose: The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) Child File, the only national dataset cataloging child maltreatment reports. It includes variables representing economic distress frequently used in published research. At the national level, these variables are demonstrably implausible, substantially underestimating economic distress. Method: This paper reviews recent work using these variables, analyzes the NCANDS data directly, demonstrates why the economic variables in NCANDS are unusable at a national level, and provides recommendations for incorporating economic measures using NCANDS. Results: We find 19 articles that have used these variables within the past 10 years. Most states provide implausible estimates. Economic measures can be incorporated into NCANDS data by either subsetting to s states with plausible estimates of these variables in given years, or appending county-level economic Census data. Discussion: Without addressing these variables’ issues in plausibility, use of them will yield biased estimates.

Poverty or Racism? A Re-Analysis of Briggs et al. 2022

“…Independent of the analytic problems described above, the underlying data used in Briggs et al present serious problems and make the study findings extremely problematic. Again, the poor validity of numerous variables in NCANDS was not created by Briggs et al, nor are they alone in presenting these undeniably flawed data without articulating the limitations (Jones et al, 2022). The sampling frame capturing public assistance children only captured a sixth or less of the children who should have been included.…”