PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Fitzpatrick, Maria D.
AU  - Sadowski, Katharine
AU  - Wildeman, Christopher
TI  - Algorithms and Decision-making
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.0224-13437R2
DP  - 2025 Aug 08
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 0224-13437R2
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2025/08/01/jhr.0224-13437R2.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2025/08/01/jhr.0224-13437R2.full
AB  - Around 40% of children experience maltreatment (Finkelhor et al. 2013), with harmful outcomes and high social costs. Child protection decisions are complex, and potentially biased and/or prone to errors due to underfunding and overload. Our randomized controlled trial showed algorithmic tools sped up decision-making but didn't significantly change child outcomes, perhaps because COVID disruptions limited outcome analysis. Results are suggestive that risk aversions played a role: high-risk cases flagged by the tool were more likely screened in, while low-risk cases weren’t more likely screened out. Time savings from the tool could enable caseworkers to spend more time directly with families.