Comparability

Comparability - geographical

The statistics cannot be compared directly internationally.

Comparability over time

These statistics have been compiled since 1977, but due to legislative changes in 1985 and 1993, the statistics are not strictly comparable over the years. Since January 1993, changes in legislation resulted in certain measures, previously considered as placement in out-of-home care, being transferred to the preventive measures policy area. At the same time, a number of new preventive measures were introduced.

Many simultaneous legislation changes in 2006, resulted in a significant data breach and contributed to a reduction in the quality of reporting. 2006 data is therefore not comparable in several areas with previous years and furthermore, the data is not unconditionally comparable to the following year, 2007, due to the same reasons. Since January 2020, data on services, granted pursuant to the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Act (LBU), are collected. The addition of LBU data has no influence on other legislative sections, presented in the statistics. Since the 1st of July 2020, the statistics also contain data on services, granted pursuant to the §11 of the Danish Act on Social Services. The statistics have had a significant increase due to the addition of §11 data.

Coherence - cross domain

The statistics are linked to the statistics on children and young persons placed in out-of-home care. This is due to the fact that a municipality is obliged to provide a child, young person, or family with preventive measures before a decision is made to place a person in out-of-home care. Furthermore, some preventive measures can only be granted in connection to a placement in out-of-home care or after such a placement. Micro-data of the Statistics contain social security numbers, which makes it possible to link the data with other statistics.

Coherence - internal

Data reported from different sources usually follow the same reporting forms. If changes in the reporting forms are made, differences can occur, as the IT suppliers cannot implement the changes simultaneously. During these periods of transition, the reply categories from the old reporting forms will be "mapped" to new categories.