Child maltreatment reporting during the initial weeks of COVID-19 in the US: Findings from NCANDS

Child Abuse & Neglect has published an article written by members of WRMA’s National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) technical team, in collaboration with John Fluke of the Kempe Center at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

The authors examined reports to child protective services (CPS) during the initial period following the declaration of national health emergency for COVID-19 and found that the number of reports to CPS declined sharply at the national level and across all states, primarily in association with a large reduction in referrals from education sentinels. The authors found that the odds for substantiation were significantly higher during 2020 than in 2019 for reports from all but three sources. The article considers explanations for the increase in percent of substantiation in the context of reduction of reports.

Click the button below to read the article on ScienceDirect’s website.