This study proposes to conduct secondary data analyses of the National Survey of Children and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW), a nationally representative longitudinal study of families investigated for child abuse and neglect.
The aim of this project is to inform service provision targeted at families in contact with child welfare services primarily due to the inability to secure safe and affordable housing. Findings will inform the development of an R01 proposal to use a natural randomized-controlled trial to test the effects of housing voucher provision compared to services-as-usual. The present study intends to test the hypothesis that housing instability disrupts the development of emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes in children. Analyses will, first, examine within-individual changes on housing instability and associated growth in developmental outcomes over time. By explicitly modeling housing changes, analyses directly estimate the effects of moving into and out of housing stability on developmental growth trajectories. Analyses also propose to examine whether child developmental problems are mitigated or prevented when caregivers receive housing vouchers (formerly known as Section 8). If housing instability predicts outcomes, then the receipt of assistance to find and pay for housing should relate to better outcomes. In the absence of experimental data, this study proposes to use propensity score matching (PSM) procedures to minimize selection bias and test the effects of housing vouchers on child welfare-involved families.
The aim of this project is to inform service provision targeted at families in contact with child welfare services due to the inability to secure safe and affordable housing. Findings will inform the understanding of risk for housing instability and the development of housing interventions.
