TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessing risk of commercial sexual exploitation among children involved in the child welfare system
AU - Panlilio, Carlomagno C.
AU - Miyamoto, Sheridan
AU - Font, Sarah A.
AU - Schreier, Hannah M.C.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by a grant from the Social Science Research Institute at The Pennsylvania State University . The funding sponsors had no involvement in study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of the data, or writing the report, or the decision to submit the results of this work for publication.
Funding Information:
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institutes of Health , Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under Award Number P50HD089922. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Funding Information:
We acknowledge assistance provided by the Population Research Institute at Penn State University, which is supported by an infrastructure grant by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development ( P2CHD041025 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2019/1
Y1 - 2019/1
N2 - The objective of this study was to assess item characteristics indicative of the severity of risk for commercial sexual exploitation among a high-risk population of child welfare system involved youth to inform the construction of a screening tool. Existing studies have discerned factors that differentiate Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) victims from sexual abuse victims, yet no research has been conducted to discriminate which items in a high risk population of youth are most predictive of CSEC. Using the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) cohorts I and II, we examined responses from 1063 males and 1355 females ages 11 and older, over three interview periods. A 2-parameter logistic Item Response Theory (2 PL IRT) model was employed in order to examine item performance as potential indicators for the severity of risk for CSEC. Differential Item Functioning (DIF) analysis was conducted in order to examine potential differences in item responses based on gender. Modeling strategies to assess item difficulty and discrimination were outlined and Item Characteristic Curves for the final retained items were presented. Evidence for uniform DIF were present within items that asked about runaway, any drug use, suicidality, and experiencing severe violence. Results from this study can inform the construction of a screening instrument to assess the severity of risk for experiencing CSEC.
AB - The objective of this study was to assess item characteristics indicative of the severity of risk for commercial sexual exploitation among a high-risk population of child welfare system involved youth to inform the construction of a screening tool. Existing studies have discerned factors that differentiate Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) victims from sexual abuse victims, yet no research has been conducted to discriminate which items in a high risk population of youth are most predictive of CSEC. Using the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) cohorts I and II, we examined responses from 1063 males and 1355 females ages 11 and older, over three interview periods. A 2-parameter logistic Item Response Theory (2 PL IRT) model was employed in order to examine item performance as potential indicators for the severity of risk for CSEC. Differential Item Functioning (DIF) analysis was conducted in order to examine potential differences in item responses based on gender. Modeling strategies to assess item difficulty and discrimination were outlined and Item Characteristic Curves for the final retained items were presented. Evidence for uniform DIF were present within items that asked about runaway, any drug use, suicidality, and experiencing severe violence. Results from this study can inform the construction of a screening instrument to assess the severity of risk for experiencing CSEC.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.chiabu.2018.07.021
DO - 10.1016/j.chiabu.2018.07.021
M3 - Article
C2 - 30077402
AN - SCOPUS:85050827811
VL - 87
SP - 88
EP - 99
JO - Child Abuse and Neglect
JF - Child Abuse and Neglect
SN - 0145-2134
ER -
