Disproportionality and Poverty

Promoting Positive Change in Communities by Confronting Poverty

Louisiana CASA is excited to host our third webinar series. This series is brought to you in partnership with the Louisiana Children's Trust Fund so we are required to ask participants certain demographic questions during registration. Once you register, an email will be sent to you that includes the link to join the webinar. We hope to see you there! This course has been approved for 1 General Social Work CEUs by Louisiana Child Welfare Training Academy as authorized by the Louisiana Board of Social Work Examiners.

Disproportionality and Poverty

Poverty intersects with other social determinants, such as racism and classism, creating structural vulnerabilities and evidence indicates impoverished children are disproportionality affected by maltreatment. Poverty, especially when combined with factors like parental depression, substance use, and social isolation, significantly increases the risk of child maltreatment. The presentation will discuss how these low-resource conditions contribute to disparities and why children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, race, and ethnicity face closer scrutiny and affect child maltreatment reports. About the Speaker

Jessica Pac is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work and the Institute for Research on Poverty. Pac’s research broadly seeks to identify the optimal policy and program levers for ameliorating adulthood inequalities in health and human capital with a strong, substantive focus on the early identification and prevention of child abuse and neglect. Pac’s research broadly considers the ways in which social policies, work-family policies, and labor policies impact multiple dimensions of health and wellbeing, such as infant and maternal health, child safety, intimate partner violence, mortality, employment, earnings, and poverty. Pac’s work has appeared in publications such as the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Economics and Biology, Social Service Review, and Children and Youth Services Review. Pac’s research has been funded by the National Institute of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, among others. Pac holds a PhD with concentrations in economics and social policy from Columbia University School of Social Work and a MPA with a concentration in social policy from Cornell University.