Substance Use & Misuse, 43:223237

Copyright 2008 Informa Healthcare USA, Inc.

ISSN: 1082-6084 (print); 1532-2491 (online)
DOI: 10.1080/10826080701690631
A Comparison of Foster Care Entry Risk at Three
Spatial Scales
BRIDGETTE LERY
Chapin Hall Center for Children, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
This study addresses the problemof operationalizing neighborhood boundaries by inves-
tigating foster care entry risk at three spatial scales. Foster care entries froma California
county between 2000 and 2003 (n = 3,311) are geocoded to each of the three scales
(N = 46 zip codes, 320 census tracts, and 983 block groups). Exploratory spatial data
analysis is used to compare spatial autocorrelation of entry rates among scales. Results
suggest that depending on how neighborhoods are dened, the geographic pattern of
foster care incidence changes. Implications for accurately targeting services to high-risk
neighborhoods and future research directions are noted.
Keywords spatial scale; child welfare; foster care; spatial analysis; modiable areal
unit problem; risk factors; high risk neighborhood
Introduction
The push for neighborhood-based child welfare and other social services demands better
tools to investigate the role of location in child and family outcomes. Geographic infor-
mation systems (GIS) and spatial analysis are now commonly used to map, for instance,
rates of child maltreatment in neighborhoods and to model its relationship to neighbor-
hood social conditions such as impoverishment or alcohol outlet density (Coulton, Korbin,
Su, and Chow, 1995; Freisthler, 2004). The spatial representation of social phenomena
on GIS maps exposes patterns and relationships that are not easily recognized using con-
ventional analytical procedures. However, there is a methodological gap between the de-
scriptive mapping of social data across geographic areas and the statistical inference of
the relationships of such variables across space. Most studies of neighborhood effects
on child maltreatment and subsequent policies promoting community-based interventions
have not considered the unique statistical biases that often arise in maps and models that use
geographic data.
The problem stems from the fact that there is no consensus on what is the best unit
of analysis to call neighborhood. Researchers chose administrative units such as census
tracts to represent neighborhoods in ecological studies out of convenience in the absence
of an available systematic method for doing so. This creates two related problems. For one,
administrative units are usually not very good proxies for neighborhoods. For another, the
variation of a phenomenon over a geographic area may change if the data are represented
over a different geographic scale (Coulton, Cook, and Irwin, 2004). These issues are known
as the zone problem and the scale problem, respectively, and fall within a larger denition
Address correspondence to Dr. Bridgette Lery, Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University
of Chicago, 1313 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637. E-mail: blery@chapinhall.org
223
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224 Lery
of problems in ecological studies, the modiable areal unit problem (MAUP; Openshaw
and Taylor, 1979; Robinson, 1950).
The zone problem refers to the fact that administrative units are typically poor rep-
resentations for neighborhoods because the concentration of a phenomenon in one spa-
tial unit will tend to spill over into adjacent units, making the relationships between the
units not independent. In other words, attributes of areal units may be correlated across
space. The strength of the correlation depends largely on where the unit boundaries are
drawn, and this correlation may bias the standard errors in multivariate ordinary least
squares regression models of ecological data, which assume independence among the
units of analysis (Bailey and Gatrell, 1995). Further complicating the matter of choos-
ing a reliable unit, neighborhood boundaries are permeable. People move in and out of
neighborhoods, making boundaries dynamic over time (Freisthler, Lery, Gruenewald, and
Chow, 2006).
Substance Use and Child Welfare in Spatial Context
The explicit consideration of spatial scale makes a substantive difference when seeking to
understand how attributes of place may impact the risk of child maltreatment or foster care
entry and when designing interventions to reduce this risk. For example, there is ample
evidence that parental substance abuse
*
is a posited risk factor for child maltreatment and
that a large portion of children receiving child welfare services are from substance-using
families (Besinger, Garland, Litrownik and Landsverk, 1999). One recent study suggests
that integrating substance user and child welfare services might be an effective strategy
to increase the likelihood of reunication for children placed in out-of-home care (Ryan,
Marsh, Testa and Louderman, 2006). Coordinating the location of substance user treat-
ment programs nearby to maltreating parents is one way to do this (DAunno, 1997).
However, in order to target the location of treatment services effectively and efciently, it
is important to know which areas in a jurisdiction are at the highest risk of using foster
care.
From an ecological perspective, it is also important to know whether there is any
relationship between drug and alcohol availability in neighborhoods and risks to children,
beyond the known associations at the individual level. Freisthler (2004) found that the
availability of alcohol in neighborhoods is associated with rates of child maltreatment in
census tracts, suggesting that a solution could be to reduce the density of bars and other
alcohol outlets at that spatial scale. However, it is possible that the density of outlets, rates
of maltreatment, and therefore their relationship to each other changes depending on how
neighborhoods are dened.
Dening Neighborhoods
The child welfare literature offers little guidance on how to measure and dene neigh-
borhoods and, as a consequence, the geographic unit chosen to represent neighborhoods
varies across studies. A neighborhood can be conceptualized as a geographic place where
residents share social networks and informal ties. However, such networks are not nec-
essarily tied to place, and the distinction between neighborhoods and communities can
become blurred (Newman and Small, 2001). In addition, residents perceptions of their
*
The journals style utilizes the category substance abuse as a diagnostic category. Substances
are used or misused; living organisms are and can be abused. Editors note.
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A Comparison of Foster Care Entry Risk at Three Spatial Scales 225
neighborhoods are unlikely to correspond to administrative boundaries (Coulton, 2005;
Coulton et al., 2004; Coulton, Korbin, Chan, and Su, 1997). Since social networks and
residents perceptions are not reliable tools with which to measure homogenous neigh-
borhoods, researchers typically select either counties (Albert and Barth, 1996; Fryer and
Miyoshi, 1995; Spearly and Lauderdale, 1983), ZIP codes (Drake and Pandey, 1996), cen-
sus tracts (Coulton et al., 1995; Deccio, Horner, and Wilson, 1994; Ernst, 2001; Freisthler,
2004), or block groups (Coulton, Korbin, and Su, 1999; Young and Gately, 1988) as units
of analysis. Block groups or census tracts are sometimes grouped to model socialization
spaces that better represent neighborhoods than do individual units (Sampson, Raudenbush
and Earls, 1997). Census and geographic boundary data are readily available at all of
these levels of aggregation, allowing for the calculation of rates of social indicators such
as poverty and, when the data are accessible, rates of child maltreatment and foster care
entry.
In addition to the zone problem, administrative units may not represent the scale at
which the social processes of interest operate (Coulton, 2005). When the level of data
aggregation is too large, the spatial pattern is obscured (Can, 1993). Maps are merely a
model of reality and can misrepresent data and lead to poor assumptions about relationships
between variables. People are good at detecting patterns visually, but they also tend to
identify patterns that are not present (MacEachren, 1995).
Most neighborhood studies in child welfare limit analysis to one spatial scale without
formal consideration of the statistical bias that may occur due to spatial autocorrelation
among units of analysis. Recent evidence suggests that an outcome such as child maltreat-
ment risk may be affected by neighborhood characteristics differently at different scales
(Johnston et al., 2004). Chou (1991) found that Morans I (Moran, 1950)the most com-
monly used measure of spatial autocorrelationincreases systematically with the resolution
level. If resolution changes the degree to which units are correlated across space, which in
turn affects the level of bias in the statistical model, then the choice of which spatial scale
to use in a neighborhood analysis is a nontrivial one.
If neighborhoods can be dened in a variety of ways, then what criteria should be
used to examine the geographic distribution of a problem? While most previous studies
choose one spatial scale to approximate neighborhoods, this study systematically compares
foster care entry rates across three commonly used operational denitions of neighbor-
hood to address the question, How can we dene neighborhoods operationally so that
researchers and administrators can choose an appropriate unit of analysis when evaluating
child welfare outcomes and designing interventions? A related goal is to demonstrate the
dangers of arbitrarily choosing units of analysis in neighborhood research. Determining
a practical and reliable unit of analysis to serve as a proxy for neighborhood will im-
prove the reliability of research on neighborhoods and the efciency of place-based service
allocation.
Method
Exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA; Anselin, 2005) is used to compare spatial auto-
correlation in foster care entry rates at three geographic scales within Alameda County,
California. Counties are the administrative jurisdictions for child welfare agencies in Cali-
fornia. Foster care entry rates vary considerably within the county, making it an illustrative
choice for study. Table 1 shows foster care entries and child population by year for Alameda
County.
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226 Lery
Table 1
Alameda County rst entries to foster care, child population, and entry rates per 1,000
children by year: 20002003
Total 2000 2001 2002 2003
First entries to foster care
1
3,739 1,005 1,033 860 841
Child population <18 years
2
360,7793
3
354,572 358,221 361,862 368,462
Entry rate per 1,000 children 2.6 2.8 2.9 2.4 2.3
1
Data source: California Childrens Services Archive, CWS/CMS 2004 Quarter 1 Extract. Based
on the rst placement episode of 5 days or more even if it is not the rst actual episode.
2
Population data source: 20002003 U.S. Census and Claritas, Inc. (2003) population projections.
3
Average population 20002003.
Dependent Variable
This study examines all 2000 through 2003 rst entries to foster care fromAlameda County
in California that lasted longer than 4 days (n = 3,311). Limiting the population to rst-
time entries eliminates the problem of overrepresenting children who reenter foster care
repeatedly over the study period. Children who return home within 4 days are arguably
children who should never have been removed from home at all, so they are not considered
in the study sample.
The data are drawn fromthe rst quarter 2004 extract of Californias Child Welfare Ser-
vices Case Management System(CWS/CMS). Under the terms of an interagency agreement
with the California Department of Social Services, quarterly extracts from this system are
housed at the Center for Social Services Research at the University of California at Berkeley
and constitutes the California Childrens Services Archive. Along with a unique identier,
the data include street addresses from where each child was removed by child protective
services. The removal addresses of children entering foster care were geocoded using Ar-
cGIS 8.3 software (Environmental Systems Research Institute [ESRI], 2003). Overall, 94%
of all removal addresses were assigned a geographic location and were then associated with
a spatial unit at each of the three scales. Foster care entry rates per 1,000 children in the
population were then calculated within each spatial unit. Table 2 shows descriptive statistics
for the rates at each scale.
Foster care entry rates within individual geographic units do not have any absolute
meaning in this study because the numerator (total entries) is summed across years, while
the denominator (child population) is calculated using only Census 2000 gures. Child
population data after 2000 are not available at the block group level, so 2000 data were
chosen to standardize the denominator within each spatial scale. Therefore, the rates are
Table 2
Foster care entry rates and spatial autocorrelation by spatial scale
n Mean Standard deviation Minimum Maximum Morans I
ZIP codes 46 10.3 8.8 0.0 35.0 .34

Census tracts 320 17.6 80.3 0.0 1,200.0 .24

Block groups 983 12.7 47.7 0.0 1,200.0 .18

Signicant at the .01 level.

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A Comparison of Foster Care Entry Risk at Three Spatial Scales 227
inated and are not shown. The purpose of the rates is to establish relative meaning within
and across geographic scales with respect to variation.
Independent Variable
Zip codes, census tracts, and block groups are the geographic units of analysis for compar-
ative study. Census block groups are nested within tracts, while zip codes are larger than
tracts but are not part of this hierarchy. Two of 48 zip codes, one of 321 census tracts, and
12 of 983 block groups are dropped from the analysis because these areas had zero child
population and therefore no risk of foster care entry. Foster care entries are particularly
infrequent at the block group scale. Thirty-one percent of block groups had zero entries
and 41% had between one and ve entries over the study period. Figures 1a and 1b show
quartile maps of the distribution of child population and rst entries to foster care across
the spatial scales. The presence and strength of spatial correlation of the measures across
neighborhoods at each spatial scale are assessed using ESDA.
Data Analysis
First, mapped foster care entry rates are explored at each spatial scale to examine variation
in risk within and between scales and to look for outliers. Second, the Morans I statistic
is calculated at each scale based on a neighbor matrix. The matrix assigns spatial weight
according to neighboring units that share lines and not vertices (referred to as rook cri-
teria), under the assumption that areas sharing a full boundary line are more alike (more
spatially dependent) than areas that do not (spatially independent). Grifth (1996) nds that
misspecication of the spatial weights matrix affects the quality of maximum likelihood
estimators, especially when N is small, and offers ve rules of thumb for specifying the
weights matrix:
1. It is better to posit some spatial weights matrix than to assume independence among the
units (extreme underspecication).
2. It is best to use a partitioning that is in between a square and a hexagonal tessellation.
3. N should be greater than 30.
4. Low-order models are preferential to higher-order models.
5. It is generally better to use a somewhat underspecied than a somewhat overspecied
spatial weights matrix.
The choice of rook criteria in this study meets all of these suggestions.
It is predicted that each spatial scale will have a different Morans coefcient (MC)
because the distribution of entry rates will vary at different levels of aggregation. Attributes
of smaller units tend to have greater variances than do larger units because there are fewer
people to smooth out the mean. For example, the variance of foster care entry risk in a block
group is likely to exceed the variance in a zip code, which typically has many more people.
This will affect the value of the MC (Wong, 1996). The presence of signicant positive
spatial autocorrelation at any spatial scale, as measured by the Morans I statistic indicates
that areas with high rates of foster care entry tend to be clustered together. If the level of
spatial autocorrelation varies across geographic scales, this will indicate that the pattern of
risk differs depending on which unit of analysis is chosen to map entry rates.
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228 Lery
Figure 1. Child population at three scales. (a) zip codes. (b) Census tracts. (c) Block groups. Foster
care entries at three scales. (d) zip codes. (e) Census tracts. (f) Block groups. (Continued)
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A Comparison of Foster Care Entry Risk at Three Spatial Scales 229
Figure 1. (Continued)
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230 Lery
Results
Figures 1d to 1f showquartile maps of aggregated 2000 through 2003 foster care entry rates
by zip code, census tract, and census block group for Alameda County. The distribution of
children across any spatial unit (Figures 1a1c) is not the same as the distribution of foster
care entry rates across that same unit (Figures 1d1f), indicating that many areas have
disproportionate rates of foster care entry. The relative rarity of foster care entry and low
population in some areasparticularly at the block group levelcreates unstable rates that
may be misleading on maps. This issue will be explored using ESDA techniques (Anselin
and Bao, 1997).
Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA)
Zip Codes. The quartile map in Figure 1d shows aggregated foster care entry rates between
2000 and 2003 for Alameda County by zip code and is consistent with other, single-year
maps of this data. Areas with highest entry rates are in West Oakland, South Berkeley, and
Hayward. The lowest rates are in the more rural and suburban areas in the southern and
eastern parts of the county.
First-order contiguity spatial weights based on rook criteria produced signicant global
spatial autocorrelation (I = .3445, p < .01) in foster care entry rates across zip codes in
Alameda County. Dotted lines indicate 95% condence envelopes around the slope of the
regression line in the Moran plot in Figure 2a (Anselin, 1996).
The magnitude and signicance of the Moran statistic suggest that the pattern of foster
care entry across the county is not random, but rather is spatially correlated. This can be ex-
pected when the units of analysis are not delineated according to demographic homogeneity;
socioeconomic characteristics are unlikely to follow zip code boundaries.
The global Morans I statistic summarizes the presence of spatial autocorrelation overall
in the county, while each of the four quadrants in the plot show local indicators of spatial
association, known as LISA (Anselin, 1995). Areas with positive spatial autocorrelation
tend to be in the lower income urban areas of South Berkeley, Oakland and Hayward
(high-high, upper right quadrant), and around the relatively afuent suburban parts of the
county, like North Berkeley, Castro Valley, and Freemont (low-low, lower left quadrant).
Areas with negative spatial autocorrelation tend to be between Albany and South Berkeley,
between Alameda and Oakland, and between Hayward and areas such as Fremont, Union
City, Castro Valley, Livermore, and San Lorenzo (high-low and low-high, upper left and
lower right quadrants).
Census Tracts. The quartile map in Figure 1e displays aggregated foster care entry rates at
the census tract level. Areas with highest entry rates are in West Oakland, South Berkeley,
and Hayward. The same general areas of highest and lowest risk stand out as in the zip
code map, with two exceptions. First, the general shape of the county is somewhat different
because census tracts are a different zone of areal measurement than zip codes. This makes
some of the tracts bordering the western edge of the county appear large when actually
the boundaries are more crude than zip code boundaries and they extend out into the bay.
Second, one small tract in the eastern area of the county is in the highest quartile, with 13
entries and 695 children. This area was smoothed in the zip code map but the tract-level
map provides a ner resolution and allows this area to emerge.
Census tracts, like zip codes, exhibit spatial clustering of foster care entry incidence
in adjacent neighborhoods, although the strength of the global spatial autocorrelation is
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A Comparison of Foster Care Entry Risk at Three Spatial Scales 231
Figure 2. Univariate Moran scatterplots of foster care entry rates at each spatial scale. (a) Zip codes:
Morans I = .3445. (b) Census tracts, Morans I = .2446. (c) Block groups, Morans I = .1815. Note:
Axis units are in standard deviations.
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232 Lery
weaker at this scale (I = .2446, p < .01), as shown in Table 2 and in the slope of the
Moran coefcient in Figure 2b. This is to be expected as neighborhoods are disaggre-
gated to smaller units. The Moran plot in Figure 2b centers the data around zero by sub-
tracting the mean, so the concentration of points along the y-axis indicates the preva-
lence of tracts with zero foster care entries. Positive and negative spatial autocorrelation
are present in the same general geographic areas as when entry rates were mapped in
zip codes. However, the ner level of granularity among tracts allows for the identica-
tion of some different local spatial clusters, as can be seen by comparing Figure 2b to
Figure 2a.
Block Groups. The quartile map in Figure 1f shows aggregated foster care entry rates by
block group. The very ne resolution of this scale breaks up the north-south pattern visible
in the tract and zip code maps and highlights some new high-risk areas such as Livermore,
Castro Valley, Newark, and Dublin.
The Moran plot in Figure 2c shows signicant spatial autocorrelation in entry rates
among block groups. The spatial autocorrelation statistic remains signicant at the block
group level (I = .1815, p < .01), although the difference in the slope coefcient between
tracts and block groups is smaller than between zip codes and tracts. This is partly because
in less populated areas tracts and block groups sometimes represent identical geographic
boundaries. The stacked values along the y-axis show that many of these small areas had
no foster care entries over the study period.
The analysis was repeated at each scale with a queen criteria spatial weights matrix
(units that share a line or a vertex border are considered contiguous spatial neighbors).
Results were consistent with the rook neighbor specication.
Discussion
This study investigates spatial dependence in foster care entry risk at three different spatial
scales and explores the extent to which risk spills over into adjacent areas depending on
how neighborhoods are aggregated. Results from ESDA suggest that indeed entry rates
in each of the three units of analysis used to represent neighborhoods are spatially au-
tocorrelated. In other words, depending on how neighborhoods are dened in this study,
the geographic pattern of foster care incidence changes. Zip codes possess the most spa-
tial dependence in this context, followed by census tracts and census block groups. This
pattern naturally occurs because, generally, zip codes are the largest geographic units and
block groups are the smallest. Therefore, neighborhood foster care entry risk varies the
least across zip codes and the most across block groups. This does not imply, however, that
zip codes best describe discreet, homogeneous neighborhoods as residents would dene
them.
Zip Codes. Zip codes represent neighborhoods on a crude scale. Exploratory analysis re-
veals some initial patterns in the way that foster care entry rates are distributed across
Alameda County. Descriptive maps show clustering, with high rates concentrated in the
relatively urban areas and low rates grouped in the suburban and rural southern neighbor-
hoods. This pattern is supported by the signicant Morans statistic as a global measure of
spatial dependence and by the local indicators of spatial association in the Morans plot.
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A Comparison of Foster Care Entry Risk at Three Spatial Scales 233
Census Tracts
Census tracts are generally smaller geographically than zip codes and when neighborhoods
are dened in this way, exploratory analysis yields somewhat different spatial patterning
that is conrmed by a signicant Morans statistic. The ner resolution highlights more
specic high-rate neighborhoods within the broad areas on the zip code maps and one
specic high-rate tract stands out in the east-central part of the county that was hidden
when neighborhoods were aggregated to zip codes. Variance instability begins to emerge
at the smaller scales as the base population declines and this can create misleading visual
patterns of high rates in areas with very few children. In this case, the tract-level maps
expose at least one important area that is camouaged in the zip code maps.
Block Groups
Census block groups, a subset of census tracts, are more homogenous and have less within-
unit variability than tracts. When neighborhoods are classied as block groups, the visual
pattern of foster care entry across areas is different fromthe other two scales. Some different
high-risk neighborhoods newly emerge at this scale, but many neighborhoods have low
populations and only a few entries, causing the rates to be inated. This is particularly
misleading in the geographically large block groups because they are the most striking
areas on the map. The signicant global Morans statistic and the Morans plot support the
general trend of high entry rates clustering in the urban parts of the county.
Implications for Practice and Policy
Zip code representations of neighborhoods are useful when sharing maps with community
partners because they generally highlight the same highest risk areas as do the smaller
scale maps. They also are practical for child welfare service planning in rural areas where
population and resource densities are low and a census tract does not represent enough
children to produce a stable rate or an area large enough to capture available resources such
as foster homes or substance abuse treatment programs. Zip code-level data aggregation
may be the most useful for matching need with service because treatment facilities are likely
to serve clients from geographic areas larger than census tracts.
Block groups may be the best proxies for homogeneous neighborhoods but variance
instability makes them not ideal for estimation. Foster care entry is relatively rare within
these small areas so that nearly one third of the block groups had zero entries over the 4-year
study period and most areas had fewer than ve entries. Census tracts, being smaller than
zip codes and larger than block groups, possess the strengths and limitations of both of the
other scales. Therefore, a best or least biased unit of analysis cannot be determined from
the study; rather, the analysis demonstrates benets and drawbacks to each spatial scale.
Furthermore, the process by which spatial relationships and spatial scale are considered
strengthens the model-building process and offers a set of diagnostic and comparative
procedures that can be applied broadly to research on neighborhoods and other small areas.
Afewlimitations are noted. First, results may not be generalizable to other areas or time
periods. Other counties may have different demographic distributions and different spatial
and social congurations of neighborhoods. Second, foster care entry is a relatively rare
event compared to maltreatment, so the low number of entries in many areas makes it more
difcult to detect major differences in spatial dependence among the scales. Third, planning
for neighborhood-based foster care reform should be informed by more developed analyses
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234 Lery
that model the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and foster care entry risk.
Factors such as poverty and alcohol outlet density have been found to be related to child
maltreatment and foster care outcomes, and taking such factors into account at multiple
spatial scales would enrich our understanding of how the ecological environment may
inuence risk for children (Coulton et al., 1995; Freisthler, 2004). Such design additions to
this study could be conducted in cities such as NewYork and Chicago, where neighborhoods
tend to be more discreet and homogenous than in California (and therefore where spatial
autocorrelation may be lower). This information can be used to guide the development
of geographically based resources and strategies such as foster parent recruitment or the
development of substance abuse programs for maltreating families in neighborhoods with
the highest need.
For instance, Freisthler (2004) found that the number of bars per 1,000 population
was positively related to child maltreatment rates in census tracts, adjusting for a very
high level of spatial autocorrelation (I = .5407) and neighborhood social characteristics.
When maltreatment reports, substantiations, and foster care entries were aggregated to the
zip code level and measured over time, Freisthler, Gruenewald, Remer, Lery, and Needell
(2007) found a relationship between the concentration of off-premises alcohol outlets such
as convenience and liquor stores and increased risk for all three measured outcomes. The
persistent ndings across scales suggest that aneffective strategyfor reducingrisktochildren
could be to limit the concentration of bars in neighborhoods.
As neighborhood-based services in child welfare and other social service elds become
increasingly popular, the accurate identication of high-risk neighborhoods becomes more
important. Administrators want to target the right areas, not just those that appear to have
high rates due to the MAUP. Planners using maps should take into account the spatial
relationships between areas because neighborhoods do not exist in isolation. As the positive
spatial autocorrelation in this study shows, phenomena in one neighborhood may, in fact,
spill over into adjacent areas. Agencies can use neighborhood maps at multiple spatial
scales to capture this artifact of mapping administrative units as proxies for neighborhoods,
and to eliminate the problems with viewing only one scale, such as over generalized zip
codes or variance instability across smaller areas. Maps can then be use to determine which
neighborhoods are most in need of interventions and then, separately, to consider spatial
scale in planning services at the scale most efcient for reaching the target population.
R

ESUM

E
Une comparaison des risques de placements sur trois echelles spatiales.
L etude aborde la question de lop erationnalit e des p erim` etres frontaliers / d ecoupages
par quartiers par lanalyse des risques dentr ee en placement sur trois echelles spatiales.
Entre 2000 et 2003 (n = 3 311), les nouveaux placements ont et e g eocod es selon trois
niveaux (N = 46 codes postaux, 320 cas recens es et 983 groupes). Un syst` eme exploratoire
danalyse de donn ees spatiales a et e utilis e pour comparer les autocorr elations spatiales des
taux de placements sur diff erentes echelles.
Les r esultats de l etude d emontrent que la fa con dont les quartiers sont d enis inuence
la fa con dont les placements sont effectues. Cette etude conclue en indiquant des pistes pour
mieux cibler les services a offrir dans les quartiers a haut risques. Des pistes de recherche
ult erieures sont aussi sugg er ees.
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A Comparison of Foster Care Entry Risk at Three Spatial Scales 235
RESUMEN
Una Comparaci on de la Entrada al Sistema Acogida Temporal en Tres Escalas
Espaciales
Este estudio aborda el problema de la operacionalizaci on de los lmites de vecindarios
a trav es de la investigaci on de la entrada al sistema de cuidado adoptivo temporal en tres
escalas espaciales. Entradas al sistema de acogida temporal de un condado de California
entre los a nos 2000 y 2003 (n = 3.311) han sido geo-codicadas para cada una de las tres
escalas (N = 46 c odigos postales, 320 subdivisiones de condado
1
, 983 grupos de calles
2
).
El an alisis exploratorio de datos espaciales es usado para comparar la autocorrelaci on
espacial de las tasas de entrada entre las distintas escalas. Los resultados sugieren que
dependiendo de c omo los vecindarios son denidos, el patr on geogr aco de la incidencia del
cuidado adoptivo temporal cambia. Se destacan implicaciones para concentrar los servicios
en vecindarios de alto riesgo y direcciones para futuras investigaciones.
THE AUTHOR
Bridgette Lery is a Researcher at the Chapin Hall Cen-
ter for Children at the University of Chicago. Much of
her work focuses on how location and neighborhood so-
cial structure impacts childrens involvement with the
child welfare system. She is particularly interested in how
neighborhoods can be better dened and targeted for so-
cial service planning. Dr. Lery has an M.S. in Social Work
from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Social Welfare
from the University of California, Berkeley.
Glossary
Neighborhood: can be conceptualized as a geographic place where residents share social
networks and informal ties.
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