About

Joyce Y. Lee, PhD, MS, MSW, LCSW, is an Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University College of Social Work and the Director of the Child and Family Wellbeing Laboratory. She identifies as a child welfare and family strengthening scholar, with a focus on promoting child welfare through preventing child maltreatment, supporting positive parenting, and enhancing the health of children in foster care. Her research examines factors and mechanisms linked with child abuse and neglect risk in families with low income or adverse family contexts, fostering positive father involvement in child welfare populations, and promoting the physical health of children and youth in foster care. Dr. Lee's work aims to inform child welfare policies and practices to improve children’s health outcomes and strengthen family relationships. She draws on family and developmental theories and employs advanced quantitative, data science, and qualitative methodologies in her research.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Medical emergency
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Psychology
• Computer Science
• Developmental psychology
• Internet privacy
• Virology
• World Wide Web
• Media studies
• Social psychology

Selected publications

• Shared parenting experiences in kinship care: The role of family demographics, adverse childhood experiences, birth parent involvement, and attitudes toward shared parenting

  Children and Youth Services Review · 2026-02-11

  article
  PublisherDOI

• U.S. Child Welfare System Processes Linked with Health Disparities: A Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Model

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Most important predictors of father-child contact in the U.S. child welfare system: A machine learning approach

  Child Abuse & Neglect · 2025-12-29

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Family context and caregiver characteristics in substantiated child maltreatment: A report-level analysis

  Child Abuse & Neglect · 2025-09-22 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Child maltreatment is a major public health concern often affecting multiple children in the same household, shaped by shared family dynamics. Yet research has primarily focused on individual children, overlooking patterns of maltreatment across siblings in a shared family context. OBJECTIVE: This study examined household and perpetrator characteristics associated with substantiated child maltreatment using a family-level approach that analyzed all children within Child Protective Services (CPS) reports. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The study analyzed 440,754 substantiated or indicated CPS reports from 21 U.S. states during fiscal years 2018 and 2019. METHODS: Using the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), we categorized reports into four mutually exclusive groups based on the types of substantiated maltreatment across all children: neglect only, neglect with other, abuse only, and abuse with other (excluding neglect). Descriptive analyses compared these groups by family characteristics, perpetrator attributes, and the intersection of family size and perpetration pattern. RESULTS: More than half of reports (51.3 %) involved multiple children with mixed substantiation outcomes. Neglect only cases (58.5 %), predominantly involved very young children, female perpetrators with caregiving roles, and prior perpetration history. Abuse only cases (14.0 %) typically involved older children, sole perpetrators, and males in non-caregiver roles. Reports with multiple maltreatment types reflected complex family dynamics with multiple perpetrators. CONCLUSIONS: Maltreatment often involves multiple children in a household, with patterns shaped by complex family dynamics, highlighting the need for tailored, family-centered interventions.

  PublisherDOI

• Exploring father–adolescent closeness: A random forest approach

  Family Relations · 2025-03-11 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Objective: This study demonstrates how machine learning, specifically random forest, can advance family science, particularly in studying father-child relationships. Background: Fatherhood research faces challenges with fathers' recruitment and retention, complex living arrangements, and lower response rates compared to mothers. Machine learning, a tool of artificial intelligence, effectively examines large and complex data sets, handles missing data, and identifies relationships between predictors and outcomes. Thus, machine learning can help mitigate the methodological challenges of studying fathers and father-child relationships. Method: = 2,927), using 131 predictors measured during the first decade of childhood. Results: Fathers' residential status with the child was the strongest predictor of father-adolescent closeness. Using random forest results to inform variable selection, we demonstrated how random forest can enhance the development and performance metrics of regression models. Conclusion: This study highlights the utility of random forest for studying complex questions, such as how family contexts predict adolescents' perceptions of their father-child relationships. Implications: Random forest is a feasible and useful approach for applied family scientists to incorporate artificial intelligence into their research, moving the field in new and meaningful directions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Acceptability and effectiveness of Ohio <scp>START</scp> : A child welfare service delivery model

  Family Relations · 2025-12-12

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Objective This study aimed to explore the potential effects of a child welfare service delivery model called Ohio START (Sobriety, Treatment, And Reducing Trauma), a certified affiliate of the national START (Sobriety, Treatment, and Recovery Teams) model, which supports families through case closure. Background Few family‐based interventions targeting parental substance use disorder and child maltreatment among child welfare systems‐impacted families have been evaluated. Methods Participants ( N = 198) completed surveys on family protective factors (i.e., social support, concrete support, family functioning, parenting knowledge, attachment) and sociodemographics. Six to 12 months following pretest completion, parents completed the post‐START evaluation (i.e., duplicate surveys from enrollment, satisfaction survey [open−/closed‐ended items]). Results Descriptive statistics showed high levels of family protective factors pre‐ and post‐START. Paired‐samples t tests showed statistically significant increases in family functioning, t (74) = −2.09, p = .040, and total family protective factors post‐START compared with pre‐START, t (74) = −2.20, p = .031. However, no statistically significant increases were observed in other subscales. Thematic content analysis of open‐ended survey items revealed the following themes: concrete resources, positive relationships with staff, family reunification, and willingness to participate in START again. Conclusion Results suggest the potential for START to promote resilience among this population. Implications Findings have implications for further investment in family‐based models for this population that integrate peer supporters and use identified family strengths.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Child Maltreatment During COVID-19: Triangulating Data Across Reporting Sources

  Child Maltreatment · 2025-10-14

  article

  The COVID-19 pandemic created enormous challenges for families across the United States. Economic concerns related to job loss and unemployment, social isolation and school closures were just some of the stressors facing families and children. Because many of these factors are known correlates of child abuse and neglect, some were concerned that child abuse and neglect would significantly increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. A rigorous and comprehensive systematic review of scientific literature was conducted to triangulate hospital, child welfare, and self-report data on child maltreatment rates during COVID-19. Using PRISMA criteria for conducting systematic reviews, the current study reviewed scientific literature on changes in child maltreatment rates during COVID-19. Of the 4,193 unique studies identified, 73 studies met eligibility criteria. Data from child welfare sources suggested declining child maltreatment immediately after COVID-19 onset, while self-report studies document an increasing trend. Hospital data findings were largely mixed with more studies reporting decreased child maltreatment during COVID-19. Interpretation of child maltreatment surveillance data from COVID-19 must account for evidence from multiple data sources which could affect resulting conclusions.

  PublisherDOI

• Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Physical Health Outcomes of Children in Foster Care: A Systematic Review

  Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · 2025-02-04

  reviewOpen access

  Children of color-especially Black and Indigenous children-are disproportionately overrepresented in foster care and experience barriers in accessing services and receiving physical and behavioral healthcare compared to their White counterparts. Although racial disparities in mental health outcomes of children in foster care have been examined systematically, less is known about racial disparities in their physical health outcomes. This systematic review aimed to examine disparities in physical health outcomes (i.e., general health, developmental delays and disability, chronic illness, health-compromising behaviors, all-cause mortality) of children in foster care by their race and ethnicity (PROSPERO ID: CRD42021272072). Systematic literature searches were conducted in PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, and Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Of the 6,102 unique studies identified, 24 met inclusion criteria: peer-reviewed journal article; published from 1991 to 2021; written in English; involved children in the U.S. foster care system; children were primarily in family-based placements; included health outcomes; included children's race and ethnicity; conducted quantitative analyses; and had an observational study design. There was limited evidence to suggest racial disparities among physical health domains examined, in part, due to the small number of studies, variability across study measures and designs, how race and ethnicity were categorized, and how related results were reported. Research that disaggregates results by more nuanced race and ethnicity categories, goes beyond including race and ethnicity as control variables, and uses more robust study designs to understand where racial disparities lie is necessary to inform practice and policy efforts to attain race and health equity in child welfare.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Finding Understanding and Support: Navigating Online Communities to Share and Connect at the intersection of Abuse and Foster Care Experiences

  Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2025-05-02 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  Many children in foster care experience trauma that is rooted in unstable family relationships. Other members of the foster care system like foster parents and social workers face secondary trauma. Drawing on 10 years of Reddit data, we used a mixed methods approach to analyze how different members of the foster care system find support and similar experiences at the intersection of two Reddit communities - foster care, and abuse. We found that users who cross the boundary between the two communities focus on trauma experiences specific to different roles in foster care. While representing a small number of users, cross-posters contribute heavily to both communities, and, compared to other community members, receive higher scores and more replies. We explore the roles boundary crossing users have both in the online community and in the context of foster care. Finally, we present design, practice, and policy recommendations that would support survivors of trauma find communities more suited to their personal experiences.

  PublisherDOI

• Family Protective Factors and Child Behavioral Health in Families Affected by Parental Substance Use Disorder and Child Maltreatment

  Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal · 2025-01-20 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Zhen Peng

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  61 shared

• Yang Shao

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  17 shared

• Kezhong Zhao

  Xi'an Technological University

  15 shared

• Robert Lee

  Queensland University of Technology

  15 shared

• Seung‐Cheol Lee

  Indo Korea Science and Technology

  13 shared

• Vineet Rawat

  Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar

  12 shared

• Marinos N. Vouvakis

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  11 shared

• Z.J. Cendes

  Ansys (United States)

  10 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Social Work and Developmental Psychology

  University of Michigan

  2021

• M.S., Developmental Psychology

  University of Michigan

  2018

• Other, Social Work

  Columbia University

  2013

• Other, Social Work

  Rutgers University

  2011

Awards & honors

• Family Strengthening Scholar’s Grant from the Children’s Bur…