The Family Well-being Indicators

If you can’t find the data you’re looking for or need help interpreting it, please use the Contact Us form to send our Research Team a data inquiry. PCA America’s trained professionals can help you locate, understand, or in certain circumstances, participate in collecting data that activates the Evidence for a Brighter Future.

While conditions for families vary location to location, The Family Well-being Indicators Heat Maps allow users to quickly identify state-level areas of opportunity for family strengthening programs and strategies that address systemic issues and barriers.

Because our work centers families and is grounded in science, PCA America created The Blueprint for Family Well-being as a roadmap for the primary prevention field to promote a unified movement that ensures all children and families are living a purposeful and happy life with hope for the future.

The Family Well-being Indicators is a tool guiding public health professionals, community organizers, policy makers, and more, in understanding and improving current conditions for children and families. The data collected here can be used to support:

• Program or service evaluation
• Advancing policy and practices
• Communications and narrative change efforts
• Grant writing and development campaigns

A child maltreatment investigation is a screened-in, investigated allegation of abuse or neglect received by a Child Protective Service (CPS) agency. Additionally, “Investigation counts” are the number of unique children involved in the child maltreatment investigation. “Investigation rate” is the number of children investigated per 1000 children in the population.

Child victims of maltreatment are also screened-in investigations of abuse or neglect received by a Child Protective Service (CPS) agency that were then found to be substantiated or indicated. “Victim counts” are the number of unique child victims of maltreatment. “Victim rate” is the number of child victims per 1000 children in the population.

See the “Dashboard Data Discussion” for additional details regarding the meaning of investigations and victims. Should you need help interpreting the data, send us an email with the Contact Us form.

Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) describe the events, relationships, and environments that promote healthy child development and act as a buffer against negative impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). However, because nationwide data is unavailable, it’s not included.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are a collection of potentially distressing events such as violence, abuse, or neglect that occur in childhood (ages 0-17).

Childhood exposure to prolonged traumatic events may result in a toxic stress response, disrupting brain development and increasing the risk of poor physical health, coping skills, or other long-term cognitive impairments.

While researchers and practitioners across many disciplines (e.g., developmental psychology, pediatrics, social work) had general knowledge of the connection between trauma and healthy development, the 1998 landmark ACEs Study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente deepened this understanding.

To view your state’s Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) data click HERE.

While the science supporting child and family strengthening strategies and approaches is robust, some indicators estimate the number of children who are thriving, those who can improve their thriving, and those who are at risk of not thriving.

To see how younger and older children are doing, by State, Sex, and Race, click HERE. 

PCA America is committed to refreshing the data annually to ensure accuracy, consistency, and alignment with finalized reporting cycles. Because we are using existing national-level data sources, we are bound to their reporting timelines. Each update will incorporate the most recently available data set, which may result in slight delays between real-time events and when they are reflected in the dashboard.  

Disaggregated data is important to understand as it helps us identify the differences in experiences and outcomes across communities, allowing for more informed and equitable decision-making. However, disaggregated data is not always available due to limitations in data collection, reporting practices, or privacy considerations, particularly when sample sizes are small.

We are committed to expanding the availability of disaggregated data whenever possible and continuing to tell a more complete and nuanced story. We welcome feedback or insights on what would be most helpful to include in future updates

All relevant information, resources and links can be found in the Data Dashboard Documentation.

Data elements and definitions can be found in the Data Dashboard Documentation, specifically section IV.