The majority of children become involved with child protection systems for reasons of neglect. Yet, this form of maltreatment is significantly understudied relative to the attention given to child physical and sexual abuse. Furthermore, despite the close associations between child neglect, poverty, and welfare use, there are many unanswered questions about why and how poverty or welfare use may matter in the etiology of different forms of child neglect. Understanding the """"""""within-group variation"""""""" of families with low-incomes, especially those who receive welfare benefits, is critical if prevention efforts are to succeed. The proposed research will take place in the context of a larger study, the Illinois Families Study-Child Well-Being Supplement (IFS-CWB), funded by the National Institutes of Health (R01HD39148). The IFS-CWB is designed to explore the etiology of different forms of child neglect (i.e., supervisory, environ- mental, and medical) within a population of welfare-receiving families with young children. Six years of longitudinal survey data, linked with administrative data from public and child welfare systems and medical chart reviews of children, will be used to conduct analyses predicting various forms of child neglect. This study has the following specific objectives: (1) To determine whether the risk of child neglect is affected by changes in family income stemming from changes in employment and welfare use; (2) To explore whether there are material hardships that mediate or moderate the effects of family income changes on child neglect; (3) To explore whether there are psychosocial factors that mediate or moderate the effects of family income changes on child neglect; and (4) To develop policy recommendations, drawing on findings from these analyses, that will help policymakers address the potential effects of welfare reform policies on children and families, and on the public systems that serve them. Multivariate analyses with the longitudinal data will incorporate """"""""lagged"""""""" values of key variables (i.e., independent and dependent) to predict child neglect during subsequent years. Additional analyses to predict formal involvement with the child welfare system will be conducted.
