Surveillance Bias in Child Maltreatment: A Tempest in a Teapot.

ABSTRACT: Background: Children are believed to be more likely to be reported for maltreatment while they are working with mental health or social service professionals. This "surveillance bias" has been claimed to inflate reporting by fifty percent or more, and has been used to explain why interventions such as home visiting fail to reduce official maltreatment reporting rates. Methods: We use national child abuse reporting data (n = 825,763), supplemented by more detailed regional data from a multi-agency administrative data study (n = 7185). We determine the percentage of all re-reports made uniquely by mental health and social service providers within and across generations, the report sources which could be subject to surveillance bias. Results: At three years

SUBMITTER: Drake B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5615508 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature