Ethical considerations in research when building predictive risk modelling in child and family welfare

Anne Marie Villumsen; Michael Rosholm; Simon Tranberg Bodilsen; Sanne Dalgaard Toft; Line Svolgaard Berg; Liesanth Yde Nirmalarajan

doi:10.31265/jcsw.v19i1.619

Ethical considerations in research when building predictive risk modelling in child and family welfare

Anne Marie Villumsen^*, Michael Rosholm, Simon Tranberg Bodilsen, Sanne Dalgaard Toft, Line Svolgaard Berg, Liesanth Yde Nirmalarajan

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Economics and Business Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

Abstract

This article presents and discusses ethical issues and implications in research when building a pre-dictive risk model for potential use in Danish child and family welfare. The idea is to build a pre-dictive risk model in order to study whether such a model can be valuable to child and family wel-fare services in the assessment of risk – aimed specifically at the decision-making process regard-ing notifications. Based on a framework developed especially for this field, we present and discuss ethical consider-ations, reflections and actions in relation to four main ethical principles: non-maleficence, auton-omy, justice and explicability. We hope that our reflections on these ethical challenges can inspire research – and potentially also the field of practice when taking a deep dive into the difficult field of digitalization in social work.

Original language	English
Journal	Journal of Comparative Social Work
Volume	19
Issue	1
Pages (from-to)	102-126
Number of pages	25
ISSN	0809-9936
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.31265/jcsw.v19i1.619
Publication status	Published - 3 Oct 2024

Keywords

child and family welfare
child protection
decision-making
ethics
machine learning
notifications
predictive risk modelling

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10.31265/jcsw.v19i1.619Licence: CC BY-NC-SA

Cite this

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abstract = "This article presents and discusses ethical issues and implications in research when building a pre-dictive risk model for potential use in Danish child and family welfare. The idea is to build a pre-dictive risk model in order to study whether such a model can be valuable to child and family wel-fare services in the assessment of risk – aimed specifically at the decision-making process regard-ing notifications. Based on a framework developed especially for this field, we present and discuss ethical consider-ations, reflections and actions in relation to four main ethical principles: non-maleficence, auton-omy, justice and explicability. We hope that our reflections on these ethical challenges can inspire research – and potentially also the field of practice when taking a deep dive into the difficult field of digitalization in social work.",

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author = "Villumsen, {Anne Marie} and Michael Rosholm and Bodilsen, {Simon Tranberg} and Toft, {Sanne Dalgaard} and Berg, {Line Svolgaard} and {Yde Nirmalarajan}, Liesanth",

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Ethical considerations in research when building predictive risk modelling in child and family welfare. / Villumsen, Anne Marie; Rosholm, Michael ; Bodilsen, Simon Tranberg et al.
In: Journal of Comparative Social Work, Vol. 19, No. 1, 03.10.2024, p. 102-126.

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

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AU - Villumsen, Anne Marie

AU - Rosholm, Michael

AU - Bodilsen, Simon Tranberg

AU - Toft, Sanne Dalgaard

AU - Berg, Line Svolgaard

AU - Yde Nirmalarajan, Liesanth

PY - 2024/10/3

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AB - This article presents and discusses ethical issues and implications in research when building a pre-dictive risk model for potential use in Danish child and family welfare. The idea is to build a pre-dictive risk model in order to study whether such a model can be valuable to child and family wel-fare services in the assessment of risk – aimed specifically at the decision-making process regard-ing notifications. Based on a framework developed especially for this field, we present and discuss ethical consider-ations, reflections and actions in relation to four main ethical principles: non-maleficence, auton-omy, justice and explicability. We hope that our reflections on these ethical challenges can inspire research – and potentially also the field of practice when taking a deep dive into the difficult field of digitalization in social work.

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KW - child protection

KW - decision-making

KW - ethics

KW - machine learning

KW - notifications

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JF - Journal of Comparative Social Work

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Ethical considerations in research when building predictive risk modelling in child and family welfare

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