Risk Prediction Model for Child Sex Trafficking Among Female Youth Involved in Child Protection: Risk Assessment Tool for Female Sexual Exploitation Involved in Child Protection

Background: Youth involved in child welfare and removed from home are at risk of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). The aim of this study was to develop a prediction model to identify those most at risk of trafficking. Methods: Data were obtained from the Florida Safe Families Network Database of the Florida Department of Children and Families. A Cox proportional hazard regression of 60 cases and 3857 controls generated the proposed risk model. Results: Factors associated with increased risk of trafficking were quantified into point scores, resulting in the Welfare-Involved Female Sexual Exploitation Risk Assessment (WISER) tool with a 20-point cutoff: first placement outside the home at age ≥15 (11 points); runaway from home in the past year and age <15 years (40 points) or ≥15 years (16 points); spoken English as another language (14 points); on a psychotropic drug (17 points); congregate first placement (14 points); runaway/abducted status first “placement” (16 points); psychiatric institutional experience (9 points); residential institutional experience (7 points); and no time in temporary care (9 points). Of those who had experienced CSEC, 92% had a WISER score above 20. Discussion: The WISER tool achieved good discrimination and calibration power with a receiver operating characteristic curve for the validation dataset of 0.923. The WISER tool can (1) inform risk assessment for CSEC among girls involved in child welfare and (2) identify youth who are most at risk before they experience harm from trafficking.