Overview:

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), in partnership with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), is working with Westat and the University of New Hampshire to develop improved methodological strategies to produce national estimates of children's exposure to violence. The team is reviewing and assessing the recent administrations of OJJDP's National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV) and recommending items to be included in the survey instrument, frame development, sampling plan, modes of data collection, strategies for reducing nonresponse bias, reference periods for trend analysis, and viability of supporting various subgroup estimates. The team is also (1) reviewing previous approaches used to collect NatSCEV data; (2) reviewing current literature on collecting information on sensitive topics and from hard-to-reach populations, including young children; (3) analyzing data collected in previous NatSCEV administrations; (4) developing and testing appropriate measures of exposure to violence; (5) designing alternative data collection strategies and methodologies to increase the utility of the data; (6) conducting cognitive and pilot tests to evaluate the proposed alternatives; and (7) providing detailed cost estimates for administering the proposed approaches.

Goals and Objectives:

This project includes the development of a research design and survey instrument that produce accurate and reliable national estimates of and trends in children's exposure to violence. This work will build on NatSCEV's previous efforts and contribute to the field's understanding of children's exposure to violence, abuse, and neglect (both direct and indirect). Westat will work with BJS and OJJDP to develop specific recommendations for:

• content of the survey instrument that serve the field's information needs.
• development of a universe frame or frames.
• a sampling plan.
• the viability of supporting various subgroup estimates.
• modes of data collection.
• methods to improve response rates.
• strategies to address nonresponse bias.
• preferred reference periods for trend analysis.

More specifically, this research will:

• evaluate and assess the prior NatSCEV survey instruments, universe frames, sampling designs, sampling implementation, data collection modes, item response rates, and analytic approaches.
• review current literature on collecting information on sensitive topics and from hard-to-reach populations, especially on young children.
• form expert panels to inform the NatSCEV redesign, one with experts on child victimization and one with expertise on methodology.
• based on these findings, propose survey instrument content for measuring children's exposure to violence.
• propose alternative universe frames, sampling plans, and data collection procedures to assess children's exposure to violence that maintain participant safety and comfort.
• propose alternatives to improve response rates, address nonresponse bias, and increase the precision of national estimates of children's exposure to violence.
• Evaluate, through cognitive testing and pilot studies, the feasibility, utility, and costs associated with the proposed alternative methods relative to those used in prior survey waves.
• make final recommendations to improve or enhance the next NatSCEV data collection.

Contact Information:

Brecht Donoghue
Brecht.Donoghue@usdoj.gov | 202-305-1270