Study offers evidence that racial bias is at play in overrepresentation of Black youth in Canadian child welfare systems

Analysis of national data reveals Black children are more likely to be placed out-of-home than white children, including when case characteristics are otherwise similar

McGill University

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Researchers who examined Canadian child welfare data found that Black children were not only investigated at a higher rate than their white peers but were also more likely to be taken from their homes, even when the only difference between cases was the child’s race.

“We know that Black children, and Black people generally, are more likely to face socioeconomic hardship because of systemic racism. And, so, what we wanted to do here is address the question, with all things similar, is it economics or racial bias?” explained Alicia Boatswain-Kyte, lead author of the study and an Assistant Professor at the McGill School of Social Work.

The researchers used 2019 data collected from child welfare authorities across the country and published as the Canadian Incident Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS). New data is gathered every few years. The first Incident Study was conducted by McGill Professor Nico Trocmé, director of the School of Social Work, and the work is now led by University of Toronto Professor Barbara Fallon; both are co-authors of this paper.

Higher investigation and placement rates

The final weighted data set, focusing on cases involving youth under 16, included 134,925 white families and 28,415 Black families. Quebec data was excluded for methodological reasons, as certain types of investigations were not captured in the data set.

The researchers found that maltreatment investigations centred on Black children at 2.27 times the rate for white children.

The team then compared out-of-home placements resulting from investigations. To isolate the role of race, they matched cases involving Black children to cases involving white children that had similar clinical and economic profiles.

In this matched sample, involving 55,458 cases, Black children were placed out-of-home at twice the rate of their white peers, despite their cases being otherwise similar.

Racial differences

“Our results show that these disparities cannot be explained by poverty or economic hardship alone. They point to racial bias, specifically anti-Black racism, as a key factor driving these outcomes” said Boatswain-Kyte.

The professor also highlighted other differences revealed by the study, such as Black children being more likely to be reported as having suffered physical abuse, despite no significant differences in actual physical harm compared to white children. This may speak to bias regarding perceptions of Black parenting.

“I think it's important to understand and demystify this topic, because a lot of the general public see child welfare as something that's positive—because we're protecting children, right? But for Black children, this protection, it often translates into heightened scrutiny and disproportionate system involvement,” she said.

“We can't assume that once a child enters the child welfare system, they're going to come out being unscathed and perfectly OK. It remains an invasive system, one that can itself be a source of trauma,” she added.

The importance of data

Many studies using CIS data had previously revealed differences in treatment regarding Indigenous youth in the child welfare system, but no study had previously looked at Black youth, Boatswain-Kyte said.

Noting that she admires the work done by Indigenous communities and researchers around the issues affecting Indigenous children within the systems, the professor said she hopes this study and future research can also lead to concrete changes in the experience of Black children, and to generally more just Canadian child welfare systems.

“Relying solely on CIS data is not enough, we urgently need comprehensive provincial-level data to fully understand these disparities. The more access we have to this data, the more we can publish these types of studies, the more awareness grows among the general public that we have to do something, because this is unjust. It's unjust that we have a system that's treating one group of children differently from another group of children,” she concluded.

About the study

Racial disparities in child welfare: A propensity score matched analysis of Black and White children in Canada, by Alicia Boatswain-Kyte et al., was published in Child Abuse & Neglect.

The research was partly funded by the Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Child Welfare.

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Journal

Child Abuse & Neglect

DOI

10.1016/j.chiabu.2025.107728 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Racial disparities in child welfare: A propensity score matched analysis of Black and White children in Canada

 

Police-related stress is associated with health risk for Black women

North Carolina State University

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A new study finds that worrying about police brutality and harassment is associated with physical markers of cardiovascular health risk in Black women in the United States. The study found the association was most pronounced for Black women concerned about potential interactions between their children and police.

“There’s a substantial body of work that suggests stress associated with police brutality has significant adverse health effects on Black people in the U.S. – but the bulk of that work has focused on Black men,” says Lori Hoggard, corresponding author of the research paper describing the study and an assistant professor of psychology at North Carolina State University. “We wanted to see if there were associations between police-related stress and adverse health risks in Black women.”

For this study, the researchers recruited 422 Black women, aged 30-46. Study participants were asked a series of questions that captured their experiences with law enforcement, concerns about their own future interactions with law enforcement, and concerns about their children’s potential future interactions with law enforcement.

Based on the responses, the researchers classified study participants into three groups. One group, High Child Vigilance-High Personal Exposure, consisted of 235 women who – relative to the rest of the study participants – reported relatively high levels of concern about their children’s potential interactions with police and were likely, relatively speaking, to have experienced law enforcement harassment.

A second group, No Child Vigilance-High Personal Exposure, consisted of 115 women who either had no children or reported little concern about their children’s potential interactions with police but were likely to have experienced law enforcement harassment themselves.

The third group, Moderate Child Vigilance-Low Self Vigilance-Low Personal Exposure, consisted of 72 women who reported being moderately concerned about their children’s potential interactions with police, were less concerned for themselves, and were less likely than other study participants to have experienced law enforcement harassment.

The researchers also used ultrasound technology to measure carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) for all study participants. Carotid IMT refers to the measurement of the thickness of the inner layers of the carotid artery. Because thickened inner layers of the carotid artery indicate increased likelihood of cardiovascular health problems, carotid IMT serves as a marker of cardiovascular risk.

“One key takeaway here is the role that concern for children plays,” Hoggard says. “Women in the No Child Vigilance-High Personal Exposure group, who had experienced first-hand harassment at the hands of law enforcement, had lower IMT thickness than either of the other two groups. In other words, even women who had not experienced police harassment – but did have a moderate or high level of concern for how law enforcement might interact with their kids – had thicker IMT measurements than women who had experienced police harassment but did not have concern for children.”

The researchers controlled for study participant age, income, and other demographic and medical variables, suggesting that those factors did not account for the findings.

“This study can only show correlation, not causation, but it suggests that the stress caused by worrying about their children’s interactions with police may be greater than the stress that Black women are experiencing with regard to their own potential interactions with police,” Hoggard says. “What’s more, the increased IMT thickness of both the High Child Vigilance and Moderate Child Vigilance groups was comparable. This raises additional questions about whether there is a threshold level of stress that may be related to this cardiovascular risk marker.

“Black women generally have higher rates of cardiovascular disease than their counterparts, and are diagnosed with these health problems earlier,” Hoggard says. “This study raises the question of whether vigilance for their children may be a significant contributing factor. That question merits additional research moving forward.

“These findings also underscore the importance of developing policy solutions that can help address the underlying challenges that contribute to these concerns and related stress,” says Hoggard.

The paper, “Police-Related Stress and Carotid Intima-Media Thickness Among African American Women,” is published in the journal Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine. The paper was co-authored by Raphiel Murden, Shivika Udaipuria, Viola Vaccarino, Arshed Quyyumi and Tené Lewis of Emory University; Nicole Fields of Northwestern University; Christy Erving of The University of Texas at Austin; Reneé Moore of Drexel University; and Emma Barinas-Mitchell of the University of Pittsburgh.

This work was done with support from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute under grants R01 HL130471, R01 HL158141, K24 HL163696 and T32 HL130025; and from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, under grant P2CHD042849.

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Journal

Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine

DOI

10.1097/PSY.0000000000001428 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Police-Related Stress and Carotid Intima-Media Thickness Among African American Women

 

How wheat protects itself from fungi

University of Zurich

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Cereals are among the most important staple foods. Wheat alone provides around 20 percent of the global supply of protein and calories. However, its production is threatened by plant diseases, such as the wheat powdery mildew fungus. One sustainable alternative to using fungicides is to grow wheat varieties that are genetically resistant to this pathogen. However, in many cases this is not effective in the long term because powdery mildew evolves quickly and is able to overcome any resistance.

Exploiting natural resistance
A team from the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at the University of Zurich has now conducted more in-depth studies to establish how the powdery mildew fungus is able to infect wheat despite the presence of resistance genes. The researchers discovered a previously unknown interplay between resistance factors in wheat and disease factors in powdery mildew. “This deeper understanding allows us to deploy resistance genes in a more targeted way and prevents or slows down the breakdown of resistance”, says postdoctoral researcher Zoe Bernasconi, one of the lead authors of the study, which has just been published in Nature Plants.

Wheat is tricked by the fungus in two ways
The powdery mildew fungus produces hundreds of tiny proteins, known as effectors. These effectors are introduced into the cells of the host plant and help establish an infection. Resistance proteins produced by wheat can recognize some of these effectors, thereby triggering an immune response that stops the infection. However, the fungus frequently gets around this by modifying recognized effectors or even losing them entirely.

The research team has now identified a novel powdery mildew effector (called AvrPm4) that is recognized by the known wheat resistance protein Pm4. Yet surprisingly, the fungus is able to overcome the Pm4-mediated resistance − and is able to do so without modifying or losing the AvrPm4 effector. Its clever trick is that it has a second effector that prevents the recognition of AvrPm4. “We suspect that the function of AvrPm4 is essential for the fungus to survive, and that’s why this unusual mechanism arose over the course of evolution,” says Bernasconi.

Intriguingly, the second effector has a dual role: It prevents the recognition of the first effector, AvrPm4, but additionally is recognized by yet another resistance protein of wheat. “This means that, by combining the two resistance proteins in the same variety of wheat, it might be possible to lure the fungus down an evolutionary dead end in which it can no longer escape the immune response”, says postdoctoral researcher Lukas Kunz, another lead author of the study.

New approaches to produce more resistant wheat varieties
“Now that we know the fungal factors involved in the interaction and understand their mode of action, we can take more effective measures to prevent powdery mildew from breaking through wheat’s resistance”, says Beat Keller, the professor who led the research group until he retired last year. By monitoring the powdery mildew pathogen, it is now conceivable to use resistant wheat varieties in a targeted manner in places where they will have the greatest impact.

A clever combination of resistance genes in new varieties of wheat would also be an option. “Theoretically, measures like these could significantly slow down the development of new pathogenic fungal strains,” says Keller. The team has already conducted the first promising experiments in the laboratory. To do so, they combined resistance genes that target both the AvrPm4 effector and the second effector. Whether this approach will be effective in the field remains to be tested.

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Journal

Nature Plants

DOI

10.1038/s41477-025-02180-w 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Virulence on Pm4 kinase-based resistance is determined by two divergent wheat powdery mildew effectors

Article Publication Date

12-Jan-2026

 

SwRI evaluates fire risks associated with solar panel installations

Engineers test three common racking orientations, roof assemblies to identify fire mitigation

Southwest Research Institute

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image: 

SwRI conducted large-scale fire testing of photovoltaic panel systems for the Fire Protection Research Foundation, an affiliate of the National Fire Protection Association, and the Property Insurance Research Group. The research will help fire safety organizations update standards and fire mitigation strategies.

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Credit: Southwest Research Institute

SAN ANTONIO — January 12, 2026 — Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) conducted a series of large-scale tests to investigate factors that affect flame spread beneath photovoltaic (PV) panel installations on flat, commercial and industrial rooftops. The research will help fire safety organizations update standards and fire mitigation strategies.

The team fabricated test decks to replicate large roofing assemblies with mounted PV solar panels. Researchers exposed the leading edge of the deck to flame and crosswind to better understand fire hazards and evaluate mitigation strategies. The testing provided critical data for builders, insurance groups and first responders.

SwRI performed baseline tests with three different PV panel racking orientations to determine which exhibited the fastest flame spread. The team also tested two fire prevention techniques, uncovered walkways and vertical barriers, with the selected racking orientations. Finally, a comparison test was performed with a bare deck.

“SwRI’s large indoor fire testing facilities and custom pollution abatement system allowed us to safely conduct the largest-scale evaluations of PV panels to date with greater exposure control while protecting the environment,” said Alexandra Schluneker, principal engineer on the project. “Previous testing was either done on a smaller scale or performed outdoors.”

Sponsored by the National Fire Protection Association’s Fire Protection Research Foundation and its Property Insurance Research Group, the research will help the organizations update building codes and fire mitigation protocols specifically for commercial and industrial solar panel installations.

“Large-scale fire testing of PV panels to evaluate performance, flame spread and potential prevention and suppression strategies is not just a technical necessity — it is a cornerstone of advancing fire safety to ensure renewable energy solutions remain both sustainable and secure for the communities they power,” said Karen C. Carpenter, director of SwRI’s Fire Technology Department.

SwRI’s Schluneker co-presented preliminary findings from the tests at the 2025 NFPA conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, on June 18, 2025. A second round of fire testing will be performed in early 2026 to further investigate additional mitigation strategies.

For more information, visit https://www.swri.org/markets/chemistry-materials/fire/fire-research-engineering.