About
Joe Ryan's research and teaching build on his direct practice experience with child welfare and juvenile justice populations. He directs the Child and Adolescent Data Lab, an applied research center that works with public agencies to turn administrative records into evidence for policy and practice. The lab's computational methods help track the trajectories of children and families in child welfare and juvenile justice, and its work serves researchers, practitioners, and the communities the data describe.
Dr. Ryan is committed to building strong university–public agency partnerships that use empirical evidence to answer critical questions about how systems shape children's lives. He serves on the editorial boards of Child Maltreatment, Social Work Research, Residential Treatment for Children and Youth, and Child Welfare.
Recent Research Highlights
Does a positive THC test predict later maltreatment?
Ryan and colleagues followed infants identified with prenatal cannabis (THC) exposure to examine their subsequent risk of maltreatment. The work asks whether prenatal THC exposure, as it is currently detected and reported, is a meaningful signal of later harm to children.
▶ Video summaryRead the paper (SSRN)Published in Child Abuse & Neglect
Bias in newborn drug testing
CBS News (July 2026) featured Ryan's research in coverage of racial disparities in hospital drug testing of newborns. The reporting, drawing on a Marshall Project analysis, found that Black newborns are far more likely than White newborns to be reported to law enforcement over alleged prenatal substance exposure, often on the basis of unreliable screening tests. Ryan's work found that parents of Black newborns were more likely to be reported to child welfare after positive marijuana tests, yet rarely went on to maltreat their children. He argues there is little justification for routine THC testing of newborns.
Unconditional cash transfers and early child maltreatment
Ryan, Baron, Qi, Perron & Victor (2026) examine whether cash benefits reduce the risk of child welfare involvement early in a child's life, evidence that bears directly on anti-poverty policy as a child maltreatment prevention strategy.
Outcomes for children placed with relatives
Ongoing work compares children placed with relatives to those in non-relative foster homes on two outcomes:
- high school graduation, and
- the risk of exiting foster care through termination of parental rights and adoption.
Risk of maltreatment across placement settings
This work seeks to understand the unique risk factors associated with maltreatment in different placement settings: relative homes, unrelated foster homes, residential care, and parental homes.
Current Projects
- MiFamily Together evaluation. Dr. Ryan leads the evaluation of MiFamily Together, a two-year MDHHS pilot launched in October 2024 in 25 Michigan counties that offers flexible, family-centered preservation services through a single worker and program.
- SafeCare Michigan evaluation. Dr. Ryan is responsible for the evaluation of Michigan's implementation of SafeCare, an evidence-based home-visiting program for parents of young children.
- Child and Adolescent Data Lab. Evaluation design, survey and data collection, text-based record analysis with locally run AI models, and data products for state partners (see sidebar).
Prior Funded Work
- AODA Recovery Coach clinical trial (Principal Investigator). A randomized clinical trial of recovery coaches for substance-abusing parents involved with the Illinois child welfare system. Findings appear in Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment and Children and Youth Services Review.
Selected Publications
- Ryan, J.P., Baron, J., Qi, Z., Perron, B., & Victor, B. (2026). Unconditional cash transfers and early child maltreatment. Child Maltreatment. doi
- Baron, E.J., Baum, M.Y., Doyle, J.J., Fitzpatrick, M.D., Jacob, B., & Ryan, J.P. (2026). Institutional variation in child maltreatment reporting. NBER Working Paper 35619. doi
- Ryan, J.P. (2025). From advocacy to outcomes: A randomized controlled trial of CASA in juvenile justice. Juvenile and Family Court Journal, 76(2), 22–31. doi
- Ryan, J.P., Oshman, L., Frank, C.J., Perron, B., Victor, B., & Sankaran, V. (2025). Prenatal cannabis exposure and the risk of subsequent maltreatment. Child Abuse & Neglect, 160, 107175. doi
- Baron, E.J., Doyle, J.J., Emanuel, N., Hull, P., & Ryan, J.P. (2024). Discrimination in multiphase systems: Evidence from child protection. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 139(3), 1611–1664. doi
- Baron, E.J., Goldstein, E.G., & Ryan, J.P. (2023). The push for racial equity in child welfare: Can blind removals reduce disproportionality? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 42(2), 456–487. doi
- Ryan, J.P., Jacob, B.A., Gross, M., Perron, B.E., & Ferguson, S. (2018). Early exposure to child maltreatment and academic outcomes. Child Maltreatment, 23(4), 365–375. doi
- Ryan, J.P., Perron, B.E., Moore, A., Victor, B.G., & Park, K. (2017). Timing matters: A randomized control trial of recovery coaches in foster care. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 77, 178–184. doi
- Ryan, J.P., Perron, B.E., & Huang, H. (2016). Child welfare and the transition to adulthood: Investigating placement status and subsequent arrests. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 45(1), 172–182. doi
- Ryan, J.P., Perron, B.E., Moore, A., Victor, B.G., & Evangelist, M. (2016). Foster home placements and the probability of family reunification: Does licensing matter? Child Abuse & Neglect, 59, 88–99. doi
Full list: ssw-datalab.org/publications