Can Community Crime Monitoring Reduce Student Absenteeism?

Project Description

Safety net policies are intended to provide some level of basic income support and economic security to eligible families, in turn improving developmental outcomes and life course trajectories for children. Yet, despite high rates of poverty, Latinx families are less likely than other groups to utilize these benefits.

Project Goals

The team will utilize a novel dataset, the creation of which was supported by a prior work with the W.R. Grant Foundation, to examine how variation in the state and local design of policies and their front-line delivery can hinder or facilitate the uptake of income support policies by Latinx families.

The team will apply various methodologies with nationally representative data sets to examine how design and implementation of state policies affect receipt of government benefits. These models will focus on Latinx families with equivalent low-income non-Latinx families to assess effects of different income support policies and their front-line implementation on youth social-emotional and academic outcomes. They will also examine variation in impact by parental nativity and citizenship status and youth age and gender. Findings from this study may inform policy and practice to reduce inequalities for Latinx families and build on existing knowledge about the impact of income-support policies for improving child outcomes.

Project Description

Building on the ongoing Parenting Across Cultures longitudinal study that began in 2008 with recruitment of a sample of 1,417 8-year-old children and their mothers and fathers from 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States), this project will continue to follow participants in their early to mid-twenties. The original child participants will be 22 to 26 years old, providing an unprecedented opportunity to understand how childhood and adolescent experiences in the most diverse long-term longitudinal study ever conducted culminate in adjustment during early adulthood. We will conduct interviews annually to assess family and cultural influences on decisions, risks, competencies, and opportunities during this developmental period that is characterized by major health risks and transitions in education, work, residential status, intimate partnerships, and parenthood.

Goals

We address three aims:

  1. Build a developmental model of young adult adjustment and maladjustment using mediators and moderators at the individual, family, and culture levels, including potential risk and protective factors.
  2. Examine predictors of parent-young adult relationships across cultures that normatively differ in how changes in family relationships are experienced and negotiated in early adulthood.
  3. Examine the impact of COVID-related disruptions in education, work, and other important domains on subsequent adjustment. We have collected data on COVID-related experiences every 3 months since the start of the pandemic, situating us well to be able to examine these experiences in relation to adjustment in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Addressing these aims in the most diverse, prospectively studied, multi-national sample to date will have major public health implications in informing scientific understanding of predictors of adjustment during early adulthood, a developmental period characterized by high morbidity and mortality due to mental health problems, substance use, and other largely preventable causes, as well as opportunities for positive adaptation. This work will inform programming and policy to improve population health and well-being by identifying novel targets for prevention and intervention in the United States, while also advancing the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations to guide the international development agenda through 2030.

Related Resources

Findings

Project Team Members

Liane Alampay (Ateneo de Manila University, Manila, Philippines), Suha Al-Hassan (Hashemite University, Amman, Jordan; and Emirates College for Advanced Education, Abu Dhabi, UAE), Dario Bacchini (University of Naples, “Federico II,” Naples, Italy), Marc H. Bornstein (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md., USA), Lei Chang (University of Macau, Macau, China), Kirby Deater-Deckard (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass., US), Laura Di Giunta (Rome University ‘LaSapienza’, Rome, Italy), Kenneth A. Dodge (Duke University, Durham, N.C., USA), Jennifer W. Godwin (Duke University, Durham, N.C., USA), Jennifer E. Lansford (Duke University, Durham, N.C., USA), Paul Oburu (Maseno University, Kisumu, Kenya), Concetta Pastorelli (Rome University ‘La Sapienza,’ Rome, Italy), Ann Skinner (Duke University, Durham, N.C., USA), Emma Sorbring (University West, Trollhättan, Sweden), Laurence Steinberg (Temple University, Philadelphia, Penn., USA), Sombat Tapanya (Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand), Liliana M. Uribe Tirado (Universidad San Buenaventura, Medellin, Colombia), Saengduean Yotanyamaneewong (Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand)

bella

Project Description

The purpose of this project is to design, develop, and test an online professional development program called Bridging English Language Learning and Academics (BELLA)* for improving teacher and student outcomes for working with English Learners (ELs). Through an iterative process of development following a Design Based Implementation Research strategy, the research team will develop and test an online teacher professional development program for ESL and classroom teachers to work together to support English Learners. The development process will involve teachers, administrators, parents as well as expert advisors in a design process to develop a professional development program that is feasible, engaging, and impactful.

Teachers who participate in BELLA will have improved outcomes including: increased collaboration between English as a Second Language (ESL) and classroom teachers; implementation of high-impact instructional strategies; and incorporation of students' cultural wealth into the classroom.

Students whose teachers participate will have improved outcomes in language and literacy growth in the areas of phonics, word recognition, writing, comprehension, and vocabulary.

Goals

The final product will be an online teacher professional development program for ESL and classroom teachers to engage in a collaborative process to co-plan and align their instruction for English Learners. The final BELLA Online Professional Development program will include learning modules, video segments, micro-credential frameworks, rubrics and inter-rater reliability scoring, and the structure and guidelines for the communities of practice.

Related Resources

 

*Note: BELLA was originally developed under the intervention name Developing Consultation and Collaboration Skills

Project Description

The mental health of business owners has historically been overlooked by policymakers, but the recent psychological impact of the COVID pandemic on small businesses shows that mental health care should be considered a priority and evaluated as an anti-poverty tool. This study will evaluate the impact of cognitive behavior therapy delivered through virtual reality on job creation and business outcomes in youth and female-led enterprises in Nigeria via improvements in depression, stress, and anxiety.

The impact of the mental health of an employer on firm performance is a policy-relevant topic. Several studies show that poor mental health is related to negative labor outcomes. Although there is also a long history of research that focuses on employees' mental health and well-being there is little or no research on the mental health of employers. There are three reasons why this is relevant. First, the cognitive complexity and responsibility inherent in owner-manager roles might be sufficient to tax the mental well-being of the employer. Second, a characteristic of owner-manager jobs is social isolation and loneliness which is antithetical to mental health. Third, many employers carry the burden of employees' negative emotions (such as sadness, anger) and behaviors (e.g., aggression, undermining). Given the importance of an employer’s mental health to themselves, their employees, and the organization, it is vital to explore the impact of mental health therapy on owner-managers of small and medium-scale enterprises who face more business constraints in low- and middle-income countries.

Goals

This randomized controlled trial will examine the impact of cognitive behavior therapy delivered through virtual reality on job creation and business outcomes in youth and female-led enterprises in Nigeria via improvements in depression, stress, and anxiety. The project focuses on youth and female-led enterprises because  one-in-four Nigerians are dealing with mental illness, with youth and women at high risk. This study utilizes virtual reality to deliver therapy because approximately 81% of individuals with mental health issues in Nigeria cannot access required medical care. There is also a paucity of mental health professionals in community-based and primary health-care services in the country.

Project Description

This study examines how net worth poverty – or household’s whose wealth levels fall below one-quarter of the federal poverty line – is associated with children’s cognitive and behavioral development. Most children who are net worth poor are not income poor, meaning that these economically vulnerable group of children have been conventionally overlooked in conversations about poverty. Parents and families who experience wealth deprivation through net worth poverty may be unable to adequately invest in their children, may face increased stress and anxiety, and may have curtailed expectations and aspirations for their children’s life goals. In the event of an economic crisis—such as a lost income or medical emergency – parents may not have enough savings to meet the basic needs of their children. Our investigation contributes a new perspective on economic precarity of child households, on the ways in net worth complements and exacerbates the negative effects of income poverty, and on the role that anti-poverty policies play in supporting the overall economic health of child households.

Project Goals

Aim 1: Identify if net worth poverty is associated with children's cognitive development and behavioral outcomes, and if net worth poverty operates independently of income poverty.

Aim 2: Investigate how racial and ethnic disparities in net worth poverty are associated with racial and ethnic disparities in children's cognitive and behavioral outcomes.

Aim 3: Examine whether the EITC alleviates net worth poverty and thus reduces the negative consequences of net worth poverty on children's development beyond its influences on income poverty.

Related Findings and Resources

Project Description

Compared to adolescents or adults in mid-life, young adults (aged 22-26) are at higher risk of death and disease from a variety of causes, most of which are preventable, including mental health problems, substance use, sexually transmitted infections, homicides, and motor vehicle accidents. Mental health and substance use disorders alone account for approximately two-thirds of the burden of disability in early adulthood in the United States, patterns that are similar in many other countries. Although the burden rate is similar to that of the United States in many other countries, little is known of cross-cultural heterogeneity in potential risk and protective factors during early adulthood. Is the risk associated with early adulthood bound to the culture of the United States, or is it a universal phenomenon? Do the early emerging risk factors, developmental trajectories from childhood, and mediating processes for young adult outcomes vary by culture? Understanding cross-cultural similarity and heterogeneity in childhood and adolescent risks could inform a comprehensive understanding of the etiology of the mental health and substance use disorder burden in young adults. This work utilizes a rigorous prospective longitudinal study from childhood, of samples diverse with respect to culture around the world to understand this distinct developmental period to identify treatment and intervention targets that may operate differently in distinct cultural contexts.

In 2008, our international team launched the Parenting Across Cultures Project, the largest and most culturally diverse study of behavioral development across the life course ever. The sample includes 1,417 8-year-old children and their mothers and fathers from 13 cultural groups in 9 countries selected for their diversity in socialization (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States). Families have been assessed annually through interviews with children, mothers, and fathers about parent-child relationships, the child’s adjustment, attitudes and beliefs, and cultural values. At ages 10, 13, 16, and 19, children completed a computerized battery to measure reward-seeking, self-regulation, and social information processing as well as risk-taking behavior. During this study, the original child participants will be 22 to 26 years old, providing an unprecedented opportunity to understand how childhood and adolescent experiences in the most diverse long-term longitudinal study ever conducted culminate in adjustment during early adulthood. The study includes interviews to assess family and cultural influences on decisions, risks, competencies, and opportunities during this developmental period that is characterized by major health risks and transitions in education, work, residential status, intimate partnerships, and parenthood.

Project Goals

  1. Build a developmental model of young adult adjustment (e.g., civic engagement, thriving) and maladjustment (e.g., anxiety, depression, antisocial behavior, substance abuse) using mediators and moderators at the individual, family, and culture levels, including potential risk and protective factors. The hypothesis is there will be cultural similarities in some mediating pathways (e.g., benefits of individual-level self-regulation and family-level warmth) but cultural differences in other mediating pathways (e.g., individual-level independence and family-level autonomy support), depending on the cultural normativeness of particular mediators.
  2. Examine predictors of parent-young adult relationships across cultures that normatively differ in how changes in family relationships are experienced and negotiated in early adulthood. Although earlier data have elucidated how parenting changes during childhood and adolescence, a number of pressing questions remain regarding parenting of young adult children. The hypothesis is that culturally normative experiences and expectations earlier in development (e.g., expectations regarding family obligations) will predict young adults’ and their parents’ experiences of the parent-young adult child relationship (e.g., negotiation of decision-making and autonomy, conflict, support).
  3. Examine the impact of COVID-related disruptions in education, work, and other important domains on subsequent adjustment and maladjustment. The pandemic instigated changes in normative transitions of young adults all over the world, with implications for their mental health and other aspects of adjustment. PAC has collected data on COVID-related experiences every 3 months since the start of the pandemic, situating us well to be able to examine these experiences in relation to adjustment in the aftermath of the pandemic.

 

Project Team Members

Liane Alampay (Ateneo de Manila University, Manila, Philippines), Suha Al-Hassan (Emirates College for Advanced Education, Abu Dhabi, UAE), Dario Bacchini (University of Naples, “Federico II,” Naples, Italy), Marc H. Bornstein (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md., USA), Lei Chang (University of Macau, Macau, China), Kirby Deater-Deckard (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass., US), Laura Di Giunta (Rome University ‘LaSapienza’, Rome, Italy), Kenneth A. Dodge (Duke University, Durham, N.C., USA), Jennifer W. Godwin (Duke University, Durham, N.C., USA), Sevtap Gurdal (University West, Trollhättan, Sweden),  Jennifer E. Lansford (Duke University, Durham, N.C., USA),  Paul Oburu (Maseno University, Kisumu, Kenya), Concetta Pastorelli (Rome University ‘La Sapienza,’ Rome, Italy), W. Andrew Rothenberg (Duke University, Durham, N.C., USA), Ann Skinner (Duke University, Durham, N.C., USA), Emma Sorbring (University West, Trollhättan, Sweden), Laurence Steinberg (Temple University, Philadelphia, Penn., USA), Daranee Junla (Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand), Liliana M. Uribe Tirado (Universidad San Buenaventura, Medellin, Colombia), Saengduean Yotanyamaneewong (Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand)

Project Description

Primal world beliefs, or primals for short, are gut-level answers to the question, “What sort of world is this?” This project addresses the question of how primals are formed by building on the longitudinal Parenting Across Cultures project, which recruited a sample of 8-year-olds and their parents in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and United States), with follow-up interviews through age 21. The longitudinal, cross-national, multi-informant, and multi-method design provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand whether and how primals in early adulthood are predicted by childhood and adolescent experiences and how parents’ primals are related to their young adult children’s primals in the most diverse long-term longitudinal study ever conducted.

Project Goals

This project aims to understand how primals are formed by drawing on data on young adults across nine countries using the most diverse long-term longitudinal study ever conducted.

Related Findings and Resources

Project Description

Together with the Child Trends, researchers from CCFP are gathering feedback from parents and providers on what they believe makes a high-quality early care and education environment for infants and toddlers. Parent and provider feedback will be used as part of a feasibility study on a large-scale high-quality early learning program for low-income and at-risk children birth to three.

This collaborative partnership supports the NC DHHS’ Division of Child Development and Early Education in following up on a recommendation from the to North Carolina’s Preschool Development (Birth Through Five) Needs Assessment. This work is aligned with – and thoughtfully expands upon – the original Needs Assessment and the NC Early Childhood Action Plan.

Goals

The CCFP team will conduct qualitative data collection in the form of diverse, professional panels with families and providers from across North Carolina.

 

Project Description

The global pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has already claimed over 2 million lives and caused unprecedented economic and social disruption. There is growing concern about long-term consequences of the pandemic on health outcomes of children, stemming from both the illness and from disruptions in the economic, social, and healthcare domains. The impact is especially severe in low resource settings because COVID disruptions have increased vulnerabilities and exacerbated inequalities. The dearth of timely data on child health trajectories and factors that impact vulnerability to future shocks limits our ability to develop effective strategies to minimize negative long-term consequences of the ongoing pandemic.

Goals

Our overall goal is to study trajectories of mental health of children and adolescents, immunization, and primary healthcare utilization in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic. Our project is located in India, where one-sixth of the world’s population lives. We will test key hypotheses about the pandemic’s impact on health outcomes, vulnerability to future shocks, and sources of heterogeneity in these relationships.

A strategic innovation is to create a new health panel dataset - called the SurvEy of HeAlth Trends (SEHAT), which means “health” in Hindi. To do so, we leverage the world’s largest household panel, the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS), which collects data on economic and social indicators from a nationally representative sample surveyed three times a year since 2014. The CPHS panel currently includes over 174,000 households. SEHAT will be a new health module administered longitudinally to a quarter of the CPHS sample (43,000 households with 167,000 individual members) to generate evidence on the pandemic’s impact on trajectories of health outcomes following the pandemic.

Our specific aims are:

  1. To quantify the association between COVID-related stressors and mental health of children, immunization, and healthcare utilization.
  2. To examine impact of COVID-related stressors on vulnerability to future shocks. Using nine waves of panel data over a three-year period starting Fall 2021, we will examine new economic shocks, such as job or income losses in the household, and their cumulative effects on child health outcomes.
  3. To make SEHAT data publicly available for research and policy. Our study will generate panel data on health outcomes from 43,000 households that can be transformative for research and evidence-based policy. We will release descriptive statistics on key indicators and policy briefs immediately after every wave. With data collection completed in Fall 2024, we will publicly release anonymized microdata and detailed documentation prior to the end of this grant in Fall 2026 to facilitate use of SEHAT by researchers worldwide.

To learn more, visit the SEHAT website.

This paper, co-authored by Lisa Gennetian, provides three reasons why giving cash to families with low incomes is a sound policy investment for families and children. (It focuses on why cash is important, not which policy option is the optimal mechanism for distributing cash to families.)

What is Behavioral Economics

A mother, let us call her Madison, intends to breastfeed her child exclusively for the first six months after consideration of the information she has read about the benefits to her and her child. After a few months, however, she adds formula even though breastfeeding has been going well and there have been no other significant changes to her circumstances. Why did Madison deviate from her intentions? Adding formula likely reflected a decision that goes much beyond cost-benefit analysis as conventional economic theory might claim: Madison’s social environment, beliefs, and 'in the moment' experiences also likely played a role in her decision (1).

Behavioral economics (BE) combines economics with social psychology and cognitive decision-making to offer a broader framework for understanding factors that affect people’s decisions and actions (2,3). BE provides a way to examine how decisions can be shaped not only by information and costs but by how choices are designed, as well as the context and circumstances of the moment in which decisions are made (Figure 1). Choice design, or architecture, includes the format, timing, presentation, presumed defaults, and source of delivery. BE offers away to recognize that the context and circumstances around decision-making are both economic, such as time and money, and psychological and social, depending on availability of cognitive resources like attention and social environments. These factors influence human behavior and can interrupt or facilitate certain desired choices and outcomes (4).

 

A BE View of Decision-Making

Decisions in the realm of family life and parenting are not a series of one-time, large decisions but rather a sequence of multiple micro-decisions (4). By breaking down the decision-making process, BE helps to identify junctures or crucial points in which micro-decisions are made and can create paths that inform larger decisions. 

 

Several micro-decisions contribute to caregiver engagement with child and family programs: 

  1. Sparking initial interest
  2. Signing up
  3. Attending
  4. Applying the information learned on a daily basis

Before each step is a decision juncture to follow the desired decision-making path: developing interest, interest into intention, intention into follow-through, and follow-through into external practice (4). Small choices, or micro-decisions, such as picking up pamphlet, can facilitate or interrupt these decisions (1). Micro-decisions do not occur in a vacuum, but in the daily contexts of a caregivers’ life. 

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Factors that Influence Decision Making

Economics is a constructive discipline, but also idealizes people who make economic decisions as calculating and rational. However, psychology offers the important view that decision-making can be messy and that the human brain and people’s available cognitive or mental resources factor in (2). Human beings do not conduct a complete cost and benefit analysis for each decision, nor even have stable preferences over time; we have mental resources that can be easily taxed (i.e., experiencing cognitive load), are subject to be influenced by contexts and are persuaded by psychological biases (1,5). These include: 

  • Humans have limited attention and processing ability. If a person is overwhelmed with decisions, concerns, and/or emotions, they may make a decision that does not match their intentions. 
  • Humans often prioritize the present over long-term benefits. As such, a person may make decisions that may be rational in the short term but are not in their best interest in the long run (2,4). 
  • Humans are subject to social pressure and social norms, whether explicit or implicit, spoken or unspoken. For example, individuals may listen to a trusted authority figure in their life more than an expert or someone impacted by a particular situation. 
  • Humans look for information that already agrees with what they believe and dismiss information that contradicts or challenges their beliefs, leading to misinformed decisions. This is called confirmation bias.
  • Humans can experience identity threats such as racism and classism which can lead to psychological responses such as stress, anxiety, and avoidance behaviors. These can lead to decreased self-image and negatively affect the decision-making process (4). 

These decision-making factors can contribute to choices that might not be intended or desired, or to choices that other social agents (e.g., the government, a director, a supervisor) had not anticipated. Behavioral economics offers a way to understand these various factors that affect the decision-making process and ways to ease it through, for example, alleviating cognitive demands and the disruption of some of these social-psychological factors. 

Applications of Behavioral Economics in Child and Family Policy

Child and family policy share the goal of positively supporting children’s development. The well-being of children depends upon the environment and circumstances of caregivers, yet few policies center their design on the actual (vs. incentivized or intended) decision-making of caregivers in the context and circumstances of their daily lives. Behavioral economics can help guide how public investments can support caregivers’ intentions. 

In the realm of child and family policy, program leaders and policymakers alike worry about participation in programs - especially when programs aim to have large or universal population reach or scale (4). Policymakers at the national, state, and local levels invest in programs and services designed to improve family well-being and support children's healthy development (e.g., early learning, nutrition, parenting, and afterschool programs). The level of participation varies widely across these programs from near universal (e.g., K-12 schooling) to much lower (e.g., parent education programs and nutrition services). BE offers insights on why some families do not fully engage in programs designed to improve well-being and support healthy development by recognizing parents as active decision-makers with complex contexts (4). Through understanding these contexts and human biases, a BE framework can reorganize the decision-making process in programs to better support follow through of the intentions of caregivers. 

With slight tweaks, or “light touches,” and design enhancements at carefully chosen micro-decision junctures, child and family policy programs might be able to boost family participation and engagement in low-cost ways and at population scale. For example: 

1. Changing the Choices

  • Including fewer choices. Despite common thought, more choices at a time can overwhelm a decision-maker and lead to indecision. Instead, include fewer decisions at a time. If needed, space out the number of decisions (3). 
  • Change opt-in to opt-out. Instead of requiring decision-makers to act to join the program, set the default to enrollment in the program, requiring individuals to opt-out if they do not wish to participate (3,6). 
  • Change phrasing of options. If an opt-out choice is inappropriate or not feasible for a decision, present decisions in terms of active gains and losses so that parents can quickly understand the decision. For example: in documents to sign up for a class, instead of “Yes” and “No” options, use “Yes, I will attend this class and I understand that I will receive quality instruction” and “No, I will not attend and I do not wish to receive quality instruction" (5).

2. Social Belonging

  • Group-based work. With the inclusion of caregivers and families in planned activities and/or sessions, programs can build positive peer influences and community among all participating families, creating a sense of social belonging. 
  • Setting new norms. Establishing norms is difficult but by introducing programs at new contexts or situations, programs can build social norms for those contexts. For example, introducing educational programs to caregivers soon after children start school creates the norm of educational programs for their children. 
  • Social network. Through caregiver testimonials, video endorsements, and letters from authority figures, programs can build the social support in the community (4).

3. And More!

  • Self-affirmations. To combat identity threat, programs can use pride-based self-affirmations to increase caregivers’ self-image and fight against fear of judgment. Examples include supportive postcards or texts that remind caregivers of their successes (7,8). 
  • Reminders. In the hectic days of caregivers, program events, decisions, and “to-do’s” can easily and understandably be forgotten. Reminders, though, can take some of the effort off of caregivers and onto the program. Reminders should be close to the date of the event or action, personalized for the caregivers, and short and easy to read (think a tweet!). Text reminders are currently common in program participation studies (9,10). 
  • Small Incentives. To encourage and alleviate some stresses around participation, programs can offer small incentives for programs and events – such as babysitting, food, or a small gift (9). 

These enhancements or “light-touches” can ease the burden of decisions off of caregivers while still preserving their agency and free-will to participate (or not) in a child and family policy program. Programs, in this way, smooth the path for caregivers and their children to participate in programs and services with affordable design enhancements or “program design boosters.” However, behavioral economics and these nudges must be used with care. All decisions must preserve freedom of choice, not be coercive or manipulative, and be easily reversible (5).

References

 

  1. Hill, Z., Spiegel, M., Gennetian, L., Hamer, K.-A., Brotman, L., & Dawson-McClure, S. (2021).Behavioral Economics and Parent Participation in an Evidence-Based Parenting Program at Scale. Prevention Science.
  2. Mullainathan, S., & Thaler, R. H. (2000). Behavioral Economics. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economics Research.
  3. Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2021). Nudge: The Final Edition. New York: Penguin Group.
  4. Gennetian, L. A. (2021). How a Behavioral Economic Framework Can Support Scaling of Early Childhood Interventions. In J. A. List, D. Suskind, & L. H. Supplee, The Scale-Up Effect in Childhood and Public Policy. New York: Routledge.
  5. Hill, Z., & Spiegel, M. (2017). Harnessing Behavioral Economic Insights to Optimize Early Childhood Interventions. CFP Consortium Webinar. Society for Research in Child Development.
  6. Gennetian, L. A. (2017). Behavioral Insights to Support Early Childhood Investments. Retrieved from beELL: http://beell.org/img/item-1-LGennetian_BSPA_2017_conference_remarks.pdf
  7. Spiegel, M., Hill, Z., Gennetian, L. A., & Friedman Levy, C. (2017). Self-Affirmation and Parenting Programs. Retrieved from beELL: http://beell.org/img/APS_2017.pdf
  8. Hill, Z., Spiegel, M., & Gennetian, L. A. (2020). Pride-Based Self-Affirmations and Parenting Programs. Frontiers in Psychology, 910.
  9. Friedman Levy, C., & Gennetian, L. A. (2017). Using Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely Principles to Engage Parents in Early Childhood Interventions. Retrieved from beELL:http://beell.org/img/EAST_memo_Oct21_2017.pdf
  10.  Gennetian, L. A., Marti, M., Kennedy, J., Kim, J., & Dutch, H. (2019). Supporting parent engagement in a school readiness program: Experimental evidence applying insights from behavioral economics. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 1-10. 

Behavioral Economics: Q&A with Dr. Lisa Gennetian

 

Q1: Why is the implementation of behavioral economic strategies so important in child and family policy?

It is important to bring a behavioral economics perspective into Child and Family Policy for two reasons. One, we often do not see child and family programs having the impacts that we think they should have, based on theory or implementation, because of sticking points that act as barriers to participation and engagement. For example, we could build this amazing program with a lot of structural support, but parents may not attend because they do not know anyone in the program or don't trust the program's intentions. Two, if we started with a framework that included both the ingredients for children's development and the science of parent decision making, we would design from the get-go very differently.

"I engage in this work to try to bring a proactive way to incorporate parent decision-making as a critical piece of the design of programs, services, and policies for children and families."

Dr. Gennetian
Lisa Gennetian - circle photo

There is a lot of promise for both uses of behavioral economics. I engage in this work to try to bring a proactive way to incorporate parent decision-making as a critical piece of the design of programs, services, and policies for children and families to increase their reach and impact.

 

Q2: Why use a behavioral economic framework to understand scaling issues in child and family policy programs?

Early childhood innovations usually come from the expertise of child development scholars. Their lens focuses on supporting children, whether that is preventing something bad from happening or making sure they are surrounded by all the ingredients for healthy development. So, what is missing from that lens? The childhood development perspective does not always bring the broad-based tools and experience to think about the whole family and how people are engaging with programs and contexts. Without those tools and experience, it is hard to move programs from really promising ideas to large-scale projects.

"I like to think of behavioral economics as bringing the best of psychology and economics together, to become the discipline that can help move any kind of public policy or intervention into scale."

Economics brings a good decision-making framework for scaling, but also some strong assumptions about how our brains work and how we interact in the context of society. Psychology informs economics that humans are not computational machines, and that context does matter. Together, these two disciplines form behavioral economics.

I like to think of behavioral economics as bringing the best of psychology and economics together, to become the discipline that can help move any kind of public policy or intervention into scale. I cannot imagine how you scale without understanding the context in which people are supposed to engage with the programs as well as how to set up systems so that they can make decisions efficiently and follow through.

 

Q3: Are the “light-touches” of behavioral economics—such as changing decisions from opt-in to opt-out—paternalistic? Why or why not?

When you are in the business of policymaking or program design, you think about structuring choices and how that intersects with agency, freedom, and free will. One error that I believe many U.S. policymakers and program leaders fall into is the idea that ‘opt-in decisions preserve free will and all intentions.’ We know that is a mistake. We know that we fall into inertia, and we do the easy things when there are hard things in front of us. So, to me it is well intended but wrong-headed policymaking to assume that voluntary enrollment always protects people and their intentions.

"I think we need to get into the mindset that the way we design choices intersects with the way we make choices. This helps free us from this idea that structuring choices always interferes with people's agency
and free will."

The second, related point is that there is always a default. What happens if you do nothing? Someone is making that decision for you: the government, a teacher, superintendent of schools, the director of a program. If you do not sign up for 401k benefits, it means you will not receive those benefits. Someone made the decision to design it that way, and therefore, you default into not getting them. One thing that is needed in policy making is a mindset that the way choices is designed intersects with the way people make choices. This helps free us from this idea that structuring choices always interferes with people's agency and free will.

The paternalistic part of this is recognizing that someone is designing choices, but the reality is we are living it anyway. I want you to think about your everyday decisions and actions, the things that you do automatically. Someone already designed those choices for you.
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0193397318302041?via%3Dihub

There is a lot of responsibility around how we redesign choices. We have to be careful about what the default is and how that intersects with people's well-being. We have to be mindful about choice structures and its implications. For example, an employer in the UK initiated an opt-out savings retirement plan that implied that the employee accepted the way the funds were being invested. In this case, though, the investment of funds was quite profitable for the person in charge of creating the funds. This is an example of manipulating for profit-making purposes, not restructuring choices for the social good. That is the distinction I try to make.

 

Q4: How does the behavioral economics framework address the impact of racism and classism that so many families experience—maybe even in other child policy initiatives?

This is part of my own revamping, reeducating, and re-pivoting myself as a poverty scholar to to integrate the experience of race, racism, and histories of exclusion and oppression as front and center.

"One of the most powerful ways behavioral economics has changed how I come at policy design and evaluation, is it switches the perspective to not what I think you need, but let me see where you are at, and how your experiences are with systems, raising families, juggling work."

One of the most powerful ways behavioral economics has changed how I have come to think about policy design and evaluation is that it switches the perspective to not what I think someone needs or what the best scientists think someone needs, but rather to understanding their current circumstances and situations and acknowledging how their circumstances have been shaped by past experiences with systems, their own histories, and the challenges of juggling and balancing family life with everything else. This is a human and lived experience first approach.

The BE framework opened the door to understanding how everything from biases, to preferences, to values, to experiences that might reflect history or current circumstances, can be translated into better design through a behavioral economics lens. BE is not a panacea for poverty or racism or structural inequality. However, I believe that behavioral economics helps with our thinking of improved design and programs and services that can do better in incorporating experiences of racism, but it is not the discipline that alone can dismantle racism.

About the Authors:

Grace O'Connor is a senior at Duke University seeking a Program II degree in Child Rights, Policy and Development. Grace worked as a research assistant for the Center for Child and Family Policy during summer 2021. 

Lisa A. Gennetian is the Pritzker Professor of Early Learning Policy Studies in the Sanford School of Public Policy, and a faculty affiliate in the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University. Her expertise includes behavioral economics and social policy.

Project Description

This project examines how the contrasting design of two important social programs-Medicaid and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)-differentially shape access to public benefits and political voice for economically and racially marginal populations. Low-income families often experience and navigate multiple social assistance programs at a time. Assessing the intersection between programs that simultaneously serve overlapping low-income populations is an important step for advancing knowledge of how to effectively design and administer social policy to achieve health equity. The nexus between programs that provide direct health resources (like Medicaid) and those that address the wider determinants of health (like WIC) is particularly imperative. The research team will conduct semi-structured qualitative interviews with administrative staff and policy beneficiaries in each program across three states (North Carolina, Kentucky, Pennsylvania).

Project Goal

This project will provide an in-depth view of variation in state-level policy rules and program administration across WIC and Medicaid and illuminate the consequences for policy beneficiaries' ability to access benefits, engage with programs, and function as democratic citizens. 

Project Description

This study is testing and expanding upon previous research findings about coordinating entities and provides an opportunity to ask new questions about their role and functions during a time of crisis. Coordinating entities are an essential part of a systems approach to building and sustaining the Out of School Time (OST) sector. Coordinating entities perform a variety of functions including system-level visioning and planning, establishing and supporting the implementation of program quality standards, developing and maintaining a citywide data system, communicating with the public about OST opportunities, advocating for funding for the OST sector and, at times, serving as funders themselves.  They also convene the OST sector and engage other key stakeholders such as school districts, in system-level partnerships.  OST coordinating entities are governed by one of three types of organizations: public agencies, non-profit organizations or networks.  Important to the success of coordinating entities is committed leadership that includes a wide range of OST stakeholders including the mayor and other local policymakers, school district leaders, OST leaders, and public and private funders.

Project Goals

The COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to examine how Out of School Time (OST) coordinating entities, and the OST sector in cities without them, responded in a time of crisis. The pandemic was a “stress-test” of the sector, OST systems and coordinating entities and it provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand what happened when coordinating entities were most needed and the extent to which they were able to gain traction in achieving their goals, demonstrate nimbleness in response to changing conditions and/or identify new roles. The stress-test of the pandemic will shed light on the relative value of coordinating functions and different governance models in a crisis.  This study also offers an opportunity to again examine the essential nature of coordinating entities during a crisis by comparing the experiences of OST stakeholders in cities with coordinating entities to OST stakeholders in cities that may have elements of an OST system (e.g., common data system) but not a coordinating entity.

 

Project Description

More than 7 million people in the United States have had their driver’s license suspended because of failure to pay traffic citations or other court fees and fines. Without a valid driver’s license, many people lack legal transportation to get to their jobs or to attend to other family needs, which reduces an individual’s ability to pay fees at all and thereby creates a vicious cycle
that prevents self-sufficiency.

Durham County’s Department of Social Services (DSS), the local human services agency that administers TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), has acknowledged that transportation issues are a barrier to employment and self-sufficiency in our region. Most research in this area has focused on lack of car ownership. However, an unexamined but very salient transportation barrier is the lack of a valid driver’s license.

This project aims to learn more about the effect on low-income families of policies that help people with suspended licenses regain a valid license. In particular, how regaining a valid license can lead to improvements in employment and self-sufficiency, including reductions in reliance on TANF benefits.

Project Goals

This project will evaluate a local program in Durham, NC that waives the fees of those who have a suspended license due to failure to pay in order to discover how reinstating drivers’ licenses can reduce barriers to employment and self-sufficiency.

The study has two broad aims:

  1. Investigate how drivers’ license reinstatement affects individuals’ employment and self-sufficiency, using administrative data for the full population eligible for the program
  2. Examine additional benefits of drivers’ license reinstatement on family functioning and child well-being for a subsample of adults with dependent children

Related Resources

Project Description

The purpose of this project is to support the development and evaluation of new evidence-based plea bargaining policies and practices in the Durham District Attorney’s Office. Evidence to inform and evaluate new office policies will be obtained from the following sources:

  1. Secondary charging and sentencing outcome data from the prior and current DA administrations;
  2. Primary case, defendant, process, and outcome data collected on felony plea deals negotiated in the office; and
  3. Primary qualitative, semi-structured interviews conducted with prosecutors in the office.

Plea policies for the office will be developed based on these data and implemented during the project. Comparative interrupted time-series analysis will be conducted to assess whether charging and sentencing outcomes changed significantly when the new DA took office and when new policies were implemented, compared with similar counties not experiencing these changes. After an initial policy implementation period, a new sustainable quality improvement-based data system will be instituted for ongoing office management and evaluation.

Project Goals

In collaboration with the Durham District Attorney's office, we will develop a novel tool for collecting data on plea bargaining practices, which notoriously occur in a “black box” in the United States. This data collection tool will not only assist the DA’s Office in developing and evaluating new plea bargaining policies, but will provide the foundation for a data collection system that can be used for ongoing evaluation and quality improvement in the office.

The data collection system developed through this research project will enable evidence-informed prosecution in Durham and provide a model for other jurisdictions.

Related Resources

Evidence suggests that domestic violence victims may have better outcomes if they interact with first responders who are trained with a trauma-informed approach. This alternative includes robust training on how to interact with individuals who have experienced traumatic events, which has been shown to improve outcomes among adults and children exposed to domestic violence.

Developing a Community-Led Response to Domestic Violence in Durham

The Duke University Center for Child and Family Policy partnered with the Durham Crisis Response Center (DCRC), the Exchange Family Center, the Center for Child and Family Health, and the Durham County Department of Social Services (DCDSS) to create the Durham Integrated Domestic Violence Response System (DIDVRS). DIDVRS is an evidence-based, community-led approach to more appropriately address the needs of children and families experiencing domestic and familial1 violence. The DIDVRS was designed to improve outcomes for children from diverse backgrounds aged 0-18 and their non-abusing caregivers who experienced or were exposed to domestic violence.

In particular, the DIDVRS aims to meet the needs of Latinx families, who are underserved due to language barriers and immigration status, and Black families, who are overrepresented in child welfare reports related to domestic violence and underrepresented in the mental health service system. The new system sought to address three main goals:

  1. Improving the system and responses to abused parents and their children exposed to domestic violence across Durham.
  2. Coordinating and providing new or enhanced services for families exposed to domestic violence.
  3. Enhancing evidence- and practice-informed services, strategies, advocacy, and interventions for families exposed to domestic violence.

The DIDVRS aims to achieve these goals through a multi-phased training for first responders and improved outreach, advocacy, and access to services.

Training of first responders, which included the Durham Police Department (DPD), Durham EMS, DCDSS social workers, and DCRC staff aims to:

  1. Increase the number of reports from DPD to DCDSS and decrease the elapsed time from DPD incident to DCDSS report.
  2. Increase usage of the DCRC crisis hotline.
  3. Decrease repeat domestic violence-related interactions. First responders were trained in an overview of the DIDVRS project, domestic violence prevalence, and the impact of domestic violence exposure and trauma on adults and children. The training also covered the barriers to working effectively with families impacted by domestic violence, as well as promoting resilience in children and available community services.

First responders engaged in a two-hour domestic violence 101 training, in which all participants received the same training for 100 minutes. The remainder of the training was tailored to meet the unique needs of the professional audience. The duration of training specifically aligned with each personal responder’s needs.

DIDVRS also aimed to increase engagement in community-level outreach and education services specific to domestic violence and to improve access to trauma-informed services for families exposed to domestic violence. DIDVRS implemented the following three main strategies to reach these goals:

  1. Improved case management and referral services for victims and their children,
  2. Enhanced trauma-informed assessment and treatment services for victims and their children, and
  3. Facilitation of or participation in community advocacy events and the development of promotional materials to increase awareness about domestic violence issues and related resources.

These activities focused on all victims of domestic violence but emphasized populations unrepresented in mental health services and overrepresented in the child welfare system, with hopes of reducing recidivism rates for domestic violence related reports.

Results

Community-Led Response System Increased Referrals and Decreased Repeat Reports of Domestic Violence

Over the course of the evaluation of DIDVRS, two important goals of the program were achieved. The number of domestic violence-related reports from DPD to DCDSS and DCRC increased overall, the number of domestic violence-related repeat reports to DCDSS decreased, and the length of time increased between repeat domestic violence-related incidents involving DPD, suggesting that the DIDVRS program had a positive impact on the Durham community. The 400 professionals and first responders who participated in the training reported increased understanding of a trauma-informed approach to domestic violence calls. First responders were trained to use the Problem-Based Learning Approach to enhance clinical decision making and prepare them for real scenarios of working with families experiencing domestic violence.

First responders who received adequate training increased the number of reports to DCDSS and calls to DCRC. This indicates that training about the importance of connecting victims to services influenced police officers’ actions in the field. The project also met two additional important goals: while the number of domestic violence-related Child Protective Services (CPS) reports increased to represent 24% of all reports in 2017 to 29% in 2019, the number of families with more than one domestic violence-related report decreased steadily each year from 22% in 2017 to 18% in 2018 . Similarly, the length of time increased between repeat domestic violence-related incidents involving DPD. Continued partnership with organizations providing trauma-informed programs and supports targeting early childhood is critical, as domestic violence-related CPS reports are more likely to include homes with young children (age 0 to 5). 4 Reframing Law Enforcement’s Approach to Domestic Violence Calls

Conclusion

First Responders Can Provide Critical Links to Community Services

A major shortcoming of the current national approach to domestic violence is that families and children are likely to be repeat victims of domestic violence exposure, due to a lack of connection and access to resources. The director of the National Police Foundation’s Center for Mass Violence Response Studies reports that trust in first responders has the potential to radically benefit victims of violent crimes.xii First responders can be valuable partners in connecting victims to community resources with appropriate training, including:

In addition to improving training for first responders on how to address domestic violence calls, efforts should be made to increase the sustainability for interventions for the victims and their families. Doing so will help to decrease the number of repeat cases and improve the quality of life of those involved.

Acknowledgements

Support for this research was provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Family and Youth Services Bureau (2016 – 2020 Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant: Specialized Services to Abused Parents and Their Children and Expanding Services to Children, Youth, and Abused Parents).

References

i. National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. (2020). NCADV: National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://ncadv.org/STATISTICS

ii. ibid

iii. ibid The Safe House Center. (2020). The Intersection of Domestic Violence and Poverty: SafeHouse Center – Domestic Violence Services. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://www.safehousecenter.org/the-intersection-ofdomestic-violence-and-poverty

iv. ibid

v. National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. (2020). NCADV: National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://ncadv.org/STATISTICS

vi. Morgan, R. E., & Oudekerk, B. A. (2018). Bureau of Justice Statistics: Criminal Victimization, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv18.pdf

vii. Kingkade, T. (2020, April 05). Police see rise in domestic violence calls amid coronavirus lockdown. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-see-rise-domestic-violence-calls-amidcoronavirus-lockdown-n1176151

viii.National Institute of Justice. (2009). Practical Implications of Current Domestic Violence Research: For Law Enforcement, Prosecutors, and Judges. Retrieved 2020, from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/225722.pdf

ix. ibid

x. Famega, Christine & Frank, James & Mazerolle, Lorraine. (2005). Managing Police Patrol Time: The Role of Supervisor Directives. Justice Quarterly. 22. 10.1080/07418820500364692.

xi. ibid

xii. Straub, F. (2020). The Importance of Community Policing in Preventing Terrorism. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/importance-community-policing-preventing-terrorism

Project Description

The Henderson-Polk Family Life Survey is an impact evaluation of the Family Connects home visiting program, when delivered using a hybrid telehealth model. Approximately half of resident Henderson County, NC and Polk County, NC families who gave birth between March 1, 2022 and November 30, 2022 were eligible for Family Connects home visits. Interviewers then contacted all families who gave birth during the evaluation period and invited them to participate in a brief online or phone survey when their child was around six months of age.

Survey responses and administrative record review will be analyzed to better find out how family characteristics and the services that families receive predict child health and development, parent well-being, and parenting behaviors.

Project Goals

This study aims to examine the impact of the Family Connects postpartum home visiting program when administered utilizing a “hybrid” delivery model that combines telehealth (virtual) service delivery for all families with limited in-home visits. The research team will also examine associations between family use of community resources and child and family health and well-being over time. With this knowledge, we can develop better ways to match families with services that will benefit them.

Related Findings and Resources