Research Program Investigates the Economic Impact of Child Maltreatment

In 2004, the National Children's Advocacy Center (NCAC), a former NCTSN Level II grantee, began a research program on the Economic Impact of Child Maltreatment (EICM).  Since then, the NCAC has worked to identify members of the Network who share interests in economic, social and health policy research on child trauma and to invite these members to participate in the EICM working group.  As a result of EICM collaborations, several interdisciplinary studies are underway that examine the economic impact of child trauma in child-serving agencies within the health, mental health, child welfare and criminal justice fields.

At the April 2006 All-Network Meeting, three EICM members led a session on the economic impact of child maltreatment and, by extension, child trauma. They presented data based on two EICM analyses.   The session provided information on current attempts to capture realistic estimates of the economic impact of trauma resulting from child abuse.  Neill Piland, with the Idaho State University Institute of Rural Health, discussed basic economic concepts, methods of inquiry and significant areas of controversy that are of interest for all child trauma researchers attempting to quantify the economic impact of child abuse.  Ramesh Raghavan, former NCTSN Policy Core director, leads an EICM team examining mental health expenditures resulting from child maltreatment.  His group analyzed data from the National Study of Child and Adolescent Well-being and found that approximately 18% of maltreated children had unmet needs for mental health treatment despite contact with the child welfare system. 

Amy Shadoin leads the NCAC’s EICM program and recently completed a cost-benefit analysis of child abuse investigation models.  Her group found that taxpayers valued CAC investigations at more than three times the actual costs of providing an abuse investigation.  Session participants were encouraged to apply economic analyses to the populations they serve, to identify costs and benefits of trauma-informed interventions they use and to develop economic information on child abuse trauma costs and treatment benefits that is useful to policy makers, funders and child-serving agencies.