Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

A burgeoning literature points to rising temperatures as a cause of widening disparities in cognitive and non-cognitive ability, birth rates, aggression, health, and other correlates of human capital (see e.g. Carleton & Hsiang, 2016). Children in particular are uniquely vulnerable to the insults of climate change. Extreme heat not only affects children directly in terms of infant mortality and early health, parents of young children are increasingly disconnected from protective resources and benefits, cultivating a stressful environment ripe for maltreatment when temperatures rise. Whether temperature directly predicts child maltreatment is unknown. To that end, in this paper I estimate the causal effect of temperature on child abuse by linking daily temperature data to the census of administrative Child Protective Services (CPS) reports for 48 states from 2010 through 2017. In addition to weighted OLS models, I test whether Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) state-level cooling support programs and air conditioning (a/c) penetration rates mitigate this effect. Overall, my preliminary results suggest that temperature affects child maltreatment reports, especially among infants younger than 12 months. Though I detect relatively larger effects among reports alleging neglect, that these often capture unsubstantiated abuse does not rule out heat stress as a potential mechanism. Air conditioning penetration rates partially mitigate this relationship, suggestive of large gains from expanding access to cooling support programs such as LIHEAP, though the direct effects of LIHEAP appear minimal at best. This work contributes to nascent knowledge on parenting behaviors and child health, unveiling potential long-term effects of extreme heat among the most disadvantaged populations.