Allegheny County Department of Human Services Praised for Tool Used to Identify Possible Child Abuse or Neglect

A think tank at the University of Pittsburgh in January formed a task force to review how the surrounding local governments use computer algorithms to inform policy decisions. The Pittsburgh Task Force on Public Algorithms will spend the next year considering if the algorithms the city of Pittsburgh and surrounding Allegheny County use to determine policing and housing policies are inherently biased. The task force’s leader, Pitt Cyber Director David Hickton, praised the Allegheny County Department of Human Services for its use of a tool that uses an algorithm to screen calls about possible child abuse or neglect. “Their leadership in that area is outstanding,” Hickton said.

The tool scores calls on a scale of 1 to 20 — with 20 being the highest risk for neglect or abuse — to help the department assign case workers to households where children are potentially being mistreated. While the Allegheny Family Screening Tool was criticized upon its introduction in 2016 for its potential to subject low-income households to higher levels of government scrutiny, a third-party evaluation last year found that it reduced racial disparities in the county’s child-welfare system.