Developing predictive risk models to support child maltreatment hotline screening decisions: Allegheny County methodology and implementation

This methodology document traces the development and implementation of the Allegheny Family Screening Tool (AFST), a child welfare predictive risk-modelling tool built by a research team led by Rhema Vaithianathan. The AFST is intended to support call screening of child maltreatment referrals by Allegheny County Department of Human Services. The methodology document includes an overview of existing practice, methodology and performance metrics of the model and details of the external validation and next steps for the model rebuild.

Citation:
Vaithianathan, R., Jiang, N., Maloney, T., Nand, P., & Putnam-Hornstein, E. (2017). Developing predictive risk models to support child maltreatment hotline screening decisions: Allegheny County methodology and implementation. Auckland: Centre for Social Data Analytics.