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Understanding Child Abuse in Rural and Urban America: Risk Factors and Maltreatment Substantiation

June 3, 2012 Comments off

Understanding Child Abuse in Rural and Urban America: Risk Factors and Maltreatment Substantiation (PDF)
Source: Carsey Institute

Key Findings

  • Approximately one-fourth of all cases investigated by CPS are substantiated.
  • Across America, 25 percent of supervisory neglect cases, 24 percent of sexual abuse cases, and 22 percent of physical neglect are substantiated.
  • Caregivers’ risk factors, including drug and alcohol abuse, mental health problems, and a recent arrest, increase the likelihood that a child maltreatment report is substantiated. Nearly one-half of caregivers with three or more risk factors have a substantiated report compared with an estimated 22 percent with only one or two risks,
    and 11 percent of caregivers with no risk factors.

  • Important differences emerge between rural and urban America:
    • Higher-income children (that is, in families with incomes greater than 200 percent of the federal poverty level) in rural areas are significantly more likely to have a report substantiated than they are in urban places.
    • Older children in rural places are more likely to have a report substantiated (35 percent) than those in urban areas (23 percent).
    • Children in rural areas whose caregivers are either experiencing active domestic violence or have cognitive impairments are more likely to have a case substantiated than similar urban children.
Categories: Carsey Institute (University of New Hampshire), children and families, mental health and substance abuse, rural issues, social and cultural issues, urban issues

Public Knowledge About Polar Regions Increases While Concerns Remain Unchanged

February 9, 2012 Comments off

Public Knowledge About Polar Regions Increases While Concerns Remain Unchanged
Source: Carsey Institute (University of New Hampshire)

The authors of this brief conduct the first comparative analysis of the polar questions that were part of the National Opinion Research Center’s 2006 and 2010 General Social Survey. Developed by scientists at the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs, these questions covered topics such as climate change, melting ice and rising sea levels, and species extinction. The authors report that the public’s knowledge about the north and south polar regions significantly improved between 2006 and 2010–before and after the International Polar Year. In addition, respondents who know more about science in general, and polar facts specifically, tend to be more concerned about polar changes. More knowledgeable respondents also tend to favor reserving the Antarctic for science, rather than opening it for commercial development.

+ Full Document (PDF)

Categories: Antarctica, Carsey Institute (University of New Hampshire), climate change, public opinion, science

More Poor Kids in More Poor Places: Children Increasingly Live Where Poverty Persists

October 29, 2011 Comments off

More Poor Kids in More Poor Places: Children Increasingly Live Where Poverty Persists
Source: Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire

The authors of this brief examine child poverty rates using decennial census data from 1980, 1990, and 2000, as well as American Community Survey five-year estimates between 2005 and 2009, to identify those counties where child poverty has persisted. They find persistent child poverty in nearly twice as many U.S. counties as those that report high persistent poverty across all age groups. In all, 342 counties have experienced persistently high levels of poverty across all age groups during the past twenty-nine years. In contrast, more than 700 counties experienced persistent child poverty over the same period. Rural areas are disproportionately likely to have persistent high child poverty; 81 percent of counties with persistent child poverty are nonmetropolitan while only 65 percent of all U.S. counties are nonmetropolitan. Overall, 26 percent of rural children reside in counties whose poverty rates have been persistently high. This compares with 12 percent of urban children. Counties with persistent child poverty cluster in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, other areas of the Southeast, parts of the Southwest, and in the Great Plains. The authors comment that the overwhelming urban focus of welfare programs means policymakers often overlook needy families in rural areas. In addition to the high unemployment and low education levels that they document in the brief, the physical and social isolation associated with rural poverty create problems different from those in densely settled urban areas. They conclude that the reductions in government spending likely to result from the Great Recession, coupled with two decades of the devolution of policymaking responsibility from the federal to the state level (and occasionally to municipal governments), may have significant implications for children and fragile families in these persistently poor rural counties.

+ Full Report (PDF)

Categories: Carsey Institute (University of New Hampshire), children and families, government and politics, poverty, rural issues, urban issues
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