The Star-Advertiser’s thoughtful examination of the disproportionate rate at which Native Hawaiians are taken from their parents and placed in foster care (“Hawaiians at risk,” Jan. 10-11) asks the question: Does this happen because of poverty or because of bias?

The most likely answer: Yes.

The biggest single problem in American child welfare is the confusion of poverty with child “neglect.” Such cases are far more common than the horror stories that make headlines.

Like many states, Hawaii has a breathtakingly broad definition of “neglect.” It includes: “When the child is not provided in a timely manner with adequate food, clothing, shelter, psychological care, physical care, medical care, or supervision … ” By that definition, there is hardly an impoverished child in Hawaii who couldn’t be deemed neglected.

That’s where the bias comes in.

As the story notes, most of the research concerning racial bias concerns African-Americans and Native Americans. But in that research, many studies have found that even when controlling for poverty, racial bias plays an important role in the needless removal of children.

The reason it’s so urgent for Hawaii to come to grips with this bias is not that it hurts parents — though of course it does. The problem is that it hurts children.

When a child is needlessly thrown into foster care, he loses not only mom and dad but often brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, friends and classmates. He is cut loose from everyone loving and familiar. Other children feel they must have done something terribly wrong and now they are being punished. The emotional trauma can last a lifetime.

So it’s no wonder that two massive studies involving more than 15,000 typical cases found that children left in their own homes fared better even than comparably maltreated children placed in foster care.

That harm occurs even when the foster home is a good one. The majority are. But the rate of abuse in foster care is far higher than generally realized and far higher than in the general population. Multiple studies have found abuse in one-quarter to one-third of foster homes. The record of group homes and institutions is even worse.

But that isn’t the worst of it. The more that workers are overloaded with false allegations, trivial cases and children who don’t need to be in foster care, the less time they have to find children in real danger. So they make even more mistakes in both directions. That’s almost always the reason for the horror story cases.

None of this means no child ever should be taken from her or his parents. But foster care is an extremely toxic intervention that should be used sparingly and in small doses.

The good news is that Hawaii has been making significant progress in lowering the dose. Over the past decade, the state has done a commendable job of safely reducing the overall number of children it takes away each year.

The state also is a national leader in placing children with relatives instead of strangers. While “kinship care,” as it is called, still is foster care, placing a child with a relative at least cushions the blow.

That track record, the kind of excellent journalism reflected in the Star-Advertiser story, and the heightened activism among Native Hawaiians mentioned in the story give hope that Hawaii will come to grips with the needless placement of Native Hawaiian children.