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How the AFCARS and NCANDS Can Provide Insight into Linked Administrative Data

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Strengthening Child Safety and Well-Being Through Integrated Data Solutions

Part of the book series: Child Maltreatment Solutions Network ((CMSN))

Abstract

Administrative data allow researchers to examine the reach and composition of the child welfare system service population, as well as the correlates and consequences of child welfare involvement. State- and regional-level analyses have been carried out with a range of linked administrative data systems. At the national level, two federal data systems provide a means to estimate population-level patterns of involvement, the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), and the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS). This chapter details the use of synthetic cohort life table methods to leverage these cross-sectional national data files to examine lifetime prevalence and distribution of child welfare system involvement. This chapter also addresses an important challenge to the assumptions of these methods—the lack of harmonization across state reporting agencies—which limits the ability to account for cross-state migration and may bias prevalence estimates.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Wildeman (2018) conducts a highly relevant, though indirect, assessment of cumulative prevalence estimates of child welfare system contact estimated using birth cohort and AFCARS and NDACAN data. The author estimates children’s cumulative risks of maltreatment report, investigation, confirmed maltreatment, and foster care placement by age five using birth cohort analysis of data from California and synthetic cohort analysis of California state records in AFCARS and NCANDS data. The author finds slight upward bias (0.4 to 1.9 percentage points) in estimated risks of all three outcomes.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to recognize and thank Ashley Lewis and Sarah Sernaker for their excellent research assistance.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA

    Youngmin Yi

  2. Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Christopher Wildeman

  3. ROCKWOOL Foundation Research Unit, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Christopher Wildeman

Authors
  1. Youngmin Yi
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  2. Christopher Wildeman
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Correspondence to Youngmin Yi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Christian M. Connell

  2. Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Daniel Max Crowley

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Yi, Y., Wildeman, C. (2023). How the AFCARS and NCANDS Can Provide Insight into Linked Administrative Data. In: Connell, C.M., Crowley, D.M. (eds) Strengthening Child Safety and Well-Being Through Integrated Data Solutions. Child Maltreatment Solutions Network. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36608-6_2

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