News Releases

Bipartisan Group Offers Policy Plan for Rebalancing National Investments Toward Children

February 8, 2022
News Release

February 8, 2022 — A bipartisan report released today on the challenges and opportunities facing children in America stresses the need to rebalance national investments toward children. The consensus report, “Rebalancing: Children First,” is released by the American Enterprise Institute-Brookings Institution Working Group on Childhood in the United States. More than three years in the…

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Heightened Immigration Enforcement Has Troubling Impact on Babies

February 3, 2021
News Release

Harsher immigration law enforcement by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement leads to decreased use of prenatal care for immigrant mothers and declines in birth weight, according to new Duke University research.

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A Third of U.S. Families Face a Different Kind of Poverty

January 6, 2021
News Release

DURHAM, N.C. – Before the pandemic, one-third of U.S. households with children were already “net worth poor,” lacking enough financial resources to sustain their families for three months at a poverty level, finds new research from Duke University. In 2019, 57 percent of Black families and 50 percent of Latino families with children were poor…

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A Simple Enrollment Change Yields Big Dividends in Children’s Early Learning Program

October 6, 2020
News Release

Duke study shows automatic enrollment, paired with option to opt-out, is highly effective at boosting parents’ participation.

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For Vulnerable Families, Pandemic’s Effect on Mental Health is Swift and Harsh

September 2, 2020
News Release

DURHAM, N.C. – In just a few months, the COVID-19 pandemic swiftly and substantially worsened mental health among U.S. hourly service workers and their children – especially those experiencing multiple hardships, according to new research from the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University and Barnard College. The study leverages real-time, daily survey data collected…

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Home Visiting Program Linked to Reductions in Child Abuse

November 11, 2019
News Release

Family Connects, a program in which nurses conduct home visits for newborns and their families, is linked to substantial reductions in child maltreatment investigations in children’s earliest years, according to new research from Duke University. Rachel Scheckter and James Soliah reading to baby Eleanor. Program participants had 44 percent lower rates of child maltreatment investigations…

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Parental Incarceration Increases Children’s Risk of Substance Abuse, Anxiety in Adulthood

August 23, 2019
News Release

Children of incarcerated parents are six times more likely than other children to develop a substance use disorder as adults and nearly twice as likely to have diagnosable anxiety, according to new research from the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University. In addition, children whose parents were incarcerated are more likely to encounter significant…

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Adolescents who self-harm more likely to commit violent crime

January 4, 2019
News Release

DURHAM, N.C. — Young people who self-harm are three times more likely to commit violent crime than those who do not, according to new research from the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University. The study also found young people who harm themselves and commit violent crime — “dual harmers” — are more…

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