State economic support policies on the prevention of child abuse and neglect during and post the COVID-19 pandemic: Bridging evidence with policy implementation

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Child abuse and neglect (CAN) is a pressing and costly public health issue with negative lifelong consequences. Children living in economically disadvantaged families and communities are at high risk for experiencing CAN or receiving CAN reports. Though not all types of CAN are preventable, theories and empirical studies suggest policies strengthening economic security may be potentially effective strategies to prevent a significant portion of CAN by improving caregiving capacity and parental well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic (hereafter, COVID) has exacerbated economic hardship and parental stress, creating additional risks related to 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 will 1) examine 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) investigate how states' policy effects vary by county poverty rate, racial/ethnic composition, and rural/urban status; 3) engage families and service providers in how policies are implemented at the local level with the aim to identify effective CAN prevention strategies in local community settings. To accomplish the proposed project goals, the PI will receive mentorship from a group of interdisciplinary experts, including Drs. Melissa Jonson-Reid, Derek Brown, and Patricia Kohl, take full advantage of the extensive resources at the NIH-funded Center for Innovation in Child Maltreatment Policy, Research and Training (P50HD096719), and extend existing partnerships with community stakeholders in Missouri. The PI will receive training in 1) performing policy evaluations with rigorous causal inference methodologies; 2) managing and analyzing large-scale ecological data; 3) conducting community-based participatory research; 4) developing NIH grants and disseminating research evidence for CAN prevention. This K01 award will enable the PI to conduct independent, community-engaged, and policy-relevant research informing states' selection and implementation of policies to prevent CAN.