Researchers linked roughly 1.5 million California birth records and 1 million CPS records, and analyzed the maltreatment risk of children born to adolescent mothers. The study’s database of integrated birth and CPS records is unique in that it not only offers a “population-level” examination of past CPS involvement among teen mothers, but it also provides an opportunity to prospectively examine health and safety outcomes in the next generation.
We now have a more complete understanding of birth and early-parenting dynamics among a very vulnerable subset of young parents. California’s Most Vulnerable Parents: A Population-Based Examination of Youth Involved with Child Protective Services was authored by University of Southern California Professor Emily Putnam-Hornstein, along with other researchers at USC and the University of California, Berkeley. Funding was provided by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.
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