{"id":1193,"date":"2013-07-28T20:24:05","date_gmt":"2013-07-28T19:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/injury-prevention\/?p=1193"},"modified":"2013-07-28T20:24:05","modified_gmt":"2013-07-28T19:24:05","slug":"measuring-child-abuse-trends-using-google-searches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/injury-prevention\/2013\/07\/28\/measuring-child-abuse-trends-using-google-searches\/","title":{"rendered":"Measuring child abuse trends using Google searches"},"content":{"rendered":"

Child abuse, along with many other aspects of violence and crime, is extremely difficult to accurately measure.\u00a0 The number of officially reported child abuse cases is just a portion of the actual number of cases in a community.\u00a0 And unfortunately, a significant predictor of how many official cases of child abuse are reported is the amount of money governments spend on human services.\u00a0 The more child protection service workers and mandated reporters there are the more official cases of child abuse are reported, independent of the actual number of child abuse cases.<\/p>\n

A recent essay by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz in the New York Times does a nice job of making this very point.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/07\/14\/opinion\/sunday\/how-googling-unmasks-child-abuse.html?src=xps<\/a><\/p>\n

Stephens-Davidowitz highlights the U.S. state of Nevada, which during the recent U.S. recession experienced a 17.5% drop in official cases of child abuse when the State\u2019s budgets where cut. \u00a0Was child abuse becoming less of a problem in the state?\u00a0 When you look at indicators of child abuse that were not as influenced by the child abuse reporting system, the trend went in the opposite direction.\u00a0 From 2006 to 2009, child fatalities from abuse and neglect in Nevada increased 50%.<\/p>\n

How can we accurately measure the problem of child abuse or at least the trend?<\/p>\n

Stephens-Davidowitz (who is currently an intern at Google) asserts that Google searches can reveal trends and help measure problems like child abuse.\u00a0 His own research based on Google searchers suggests that child abuse trended up in the United States during the recent recession despite a reported decline in official cases.\u00a0 Given both the difficulty and importance of understanding hard to measure problems like child abuse, new and innovative approaches to measuring the problems are needed.\u00a0 Will things like Google be part of the answer?\u00a0 I think so but time will tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Child abuse, along with many other aspects of violence and crime, is extremely difficult to accurately measure.\u00a0 The number of officially reported child abuse cases is just a portion of the actual number of cases in a community.\u00a0 And unfortunately, a significant predictor of how many official cases of child abuse are reported is the […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2742,2734],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-child-abuse","category-children"],"yoast_head":"\nMeasuring child abuse trends using Google searches - Injury Prevention: Editor's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/injury-prevention\/2013\/07\/28\/measuring-child-abuse-trends-using-google-searches\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Measuring child abuse trends using Google searches - Injury Prevention: Editor's Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Child abuse, along with many other aspects of violence and crime, is extremely difficult to accurately measure.\u00a0 The number of officially reported child abuse cases is just a portion of the actual number of cases in a community.\u00a0 And unfortunately, a significant predictor of how many official cases of child abuse are reported is the [...]Read More...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/injury-prevention\/2013\/07\/28\/measuring-child-abuse-trends-using-google-searches\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Injury Prevention: Editor's Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-07-28T19:24:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/injury-prevention\\\/2013\\\/07\\\/28\\\/measuring-child-abuse-trends-using-google-searches\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/injury-prevention\\\/2013\\\/07\\\/28\\\/measuring-child-abuse-trends-using-google-searches\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"BMJ\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/injury-prevention\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ba3da426ed20e8f1d933ca367d8216fe\"},\"headline\":\"Measuring child abuse trends using Google searches\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-07-28T19:24:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/injury-prevention\\\/2013\\\/07\\\/28\\\/measuring-child-abuse-trends-using-google-searches\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":314,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/injury-prevention\\\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Child Abuse\",\"children\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/injury-prevention\\\/2013\\\/07\\\/28\\\/measuring-child-abuse-trends-using-google-searches\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/injury-prevention\\\/2013\\\/07\\\/28\\\/measuring-child-abuse-trends-using-google-searches\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/injury-prevention\\\/2013\\\/07\\\/28\\\/measuring-child-abuse-trends-using-google-searches\\\/\",\"name\":\"Measuring child abuse trends using Google searches - 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