Principal investigator: Liwei Zhang, Ph.D.
Funding Source: NIH/The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 7K01HD110683, $661,905, 2023–2028.
Project Description
The COVID-19 pandemic (hereafter, COVID) has exacerbated economic hardship and parental stress, creating additional risks related to child abuse and neglect (CAN). To address material hardship and health inequity, states with differing contexts developed or expanded innovative economic support policies, with various approaches in timing, policy selection, and implementation. Understanding how COVID-related policy changes impacted CAN is essential to inform the design of CAN prevention strategies in the COVID-recovery era and plan for future disasters. Further, central to recovery from COVID (and other similar disasters) is the mobilization of community resources and collective actions by community members. Although the goal of macro-level policy evaluation is to improve community-based CAN prevention practices, little effort has been made to engage local communities in the identification and implementation of community-based policies.
Leveraging a natural experimental design with nationwide data, along with a community-based participatory design, this study 1) examines how changes in state-based economic support policies during and post COVID, individually and in synergy with each other, impact CAN report and related family stressors; 2) investigates how states’ policy effects vary by county poverty rate, racial/ethnic composition, and rural/urban status; 3) engages families and service providers in how policies are implemented with the aim to identify effective CAN prevention strategies in local community settings.
