In federal fiscal year 2019, approximately 3 million reports of suspected child abuse or neglect (CAN) met the criteria for an investigation or alternative response. Yet only 656,000 children were found to be victims of CAN. Such a large proportion of unsubstantiated CAN reports may indicate that the child welfare system is using already limited resources on reports that could be avoided with policies that better foster the accurate detection of CAN. Little research exists examining the relationship between mandated reporting policies and reported and substantiated CAN. To address this gap, we explore how five different mandated reporting policies are associated with rates of reporting and odds of substantiation. We utilized data from NCANDS, the SCAN Policies Database, and the U.S. Census. We found mandated reporting policies were not associated with rates of reporting or substantiation. However, the relationship between different policy characteristics and reports and substantiation were moderated by child race/ethnicity and the type of CAN experienced.

中文翻译：

---

强制报告政策以及发现虐待和忽视儿童行为

在 2019 年联邦财政年度，大约有 300 万份涉嫌虐待或忽视儿童 (CAN) 的报告符合调查或替代应对标准。然而，只有 656,000 名儿童被发现是 CAN 的受害者。如此大比例的未经证实的 CAN 报告可能表明，儿童福利系统在报告上使用了本已有限的资源，而通过更好地促进准确检测 CAN 的政策可以避免这些资源。很少有研究探讨强制报告政策与报告和证实的 CAN 之间的关系。为了解决这一差距，我们探讨了五种不同的强制报告政策如何与报告率和证实几率相关联。我们利用了来自 NCANDS、SCAN 政策数据库和美国人口普查的数据。我们发现强制报告政策与报告或证实率无关。然而，不同政策特征与报告和证实之间的关系受到儿童种族/族裔和 CAN 经历类型的调节。