Department of Anthropology, University College London, London, UK.
UCL Legal Epidemiology Group, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, UK.
BMJ Open. 2019 Feb 22;9(2):e023771. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-023771.
The Children in Need Census (CIN) is a case-based administrative dataset on children referred to social care services in England. CIN includes information on the 'needs' of children, and whether they received social care support. Local and national government bodies in England currently use CIN for evaluation purposes. Data are accessible to researchers under certain conditions, allowing researchers to investigate the health implications of adverse childhood experiences. However, CIN suffers from lack of metadata, meaning it can be challenging for researchers to process and interpret data, particularly if researchers are unfamiliar with the English children's social care system. To address this issue, we provide the background to CIN and describe the available data from 2008 to 2016.
CIN is derived from case records held by English local authorities on all children referred to children's social care for a 'needs assessment', regardless of whether they are eventually assessed as 'in need of social care support'. Local authorities submit these case records to the UK Department for Education for collation. CIN holds information on an estimated 2.76 million children from October 2008 to March 2016. Since 2013/2014, just under 900 000 children have been recorded in the CIN annually, equivalent to around 8% of children in England (annual prevalence). Approximately, 650 000 children enter or renter the dataset each year, equivalent to 5% of children in England (annual incidence).
Of the estimated 2.76 million children in the data, 50% are male and 47% female. 45% are referred to children's social care services due to abuse or neglect. 10.7% of children in CIN went onto a child protection plan, meaning they were judged to be (at risk of) suffering significant harm.
CIN data collection is annual and ongoing. Data from the most recent census period typically become available for researchers in the following Spring.
儿童需求普查（CIN）是一个基于案例的行政数据集，涉及在英格兰被转介到社会关怀服务的儿童。CIN 包含了有关儿童“需求”的信息，以及他们是否获得社会关怀支持。英格兰的地方和国家政府机构目前将 CIN 用于评估目的。在某些条件下，数据对研究人员开放，允许研究人员调查不良童年经历对健康的影响。然而，CIN 缺乏元数据，这意味着研究人员在处理和解释数据时可能会遇到挑战，特别是如果研究人员不熟悉英国儿童社会关怀系统。为了解决这个问题，我们提供了 CIN 的背景信息，并描述了 2008 年至 2016 年期间可用的数据。
CIN 源自英格兰地方当局为所有被转介到儿童社会关怀进行“需求评估”的儿童的案例记录，无论他们最终是否被评估为“需要社会关怀支持”。地方当局将这些案例记录提交给英国教育部进行整理。CIN 保存了 2008 年 10 月至 2016 年 3 月期间约 276 万儿童的信息。自 2013/2014 年以来，每年约有近 90 万儿童被记录在 CIN 中，相当于英格兰儿童的 8%（年度流行率）。每年约有 65 万儿童进入或重新进入数据集，相当于英格兰儿童的 5%（年度发病率）。
在估计的 276 万儿童中，50%是男性，47%是女性。45%的儿童因虐待或忽视而被转介到儿童社会关怀服务。CIN 中有 10.7%的儿童进入儿童保护计划，这意味着他们被判定（有风险）遭受重大伤害。
CIN 的数据收集是年度的，并且在持续进行。最近一次普查期的数据通常在次年春季提供给研究人员。
