Lifestyle
Nearly 1 million U.S. children maltreated in 2006
By Sue Mueller
Apr 3, 2008 - 10:25:59 PM

FRIDAY April 3, 2008 (Foodconsumer.org) -- An official report released on April 4 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed about 905,000 U.S. children aged 18 or younger were victims of maltreatment in the federal fiscal year 2006 from Oct. 2005 through Sept. 2006.

The data were substantiated by state and local child protective services agencies.   The total cases of maltreatment subject to investigations were 3.6 million in 2006.

A 2002 surveillance report found about 19% of child maltreatment fatalities occurred among infants or children aged < 1 year and homicide statistics suggested that fatality risk might be greatest in the first week of life.

The current report for the first time revealed the risk of nonfatal maltreatment among the U.S. children in fiscal year 2006.  

For the report, the CDC and the federal Administration for Children and Families (ACF) analyzed data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) and found a total of 91,278 infants aged <1 year  or 23.2 per 1,000 population experienced nonfatal maltreatment including 29,881 or 32.7% who were aged <1 week.

Among those who were aged <1 week, 68.5% were victims of neglect.  The data were so collected that researchers could not characterize the nature of this neglect, which is important for developing effective measures to prevent maltreatment of infants aged <1 week, according to M. L. Brodowski of Office on Child Abuse and Neglect and colleagues who authored the report.

The data had been collected in NCANDS since 1993 in response to the federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, the report says.  One drawback was that the definitions of maltreatment used by individual states were not standardized.  But the ACF Children's Bureau assessed the internal consistency of the data and identified probable cases for missing data.

Among substantiated cases of maltreatment, 451.6% victims were male, 43.6% were white, 25.2% black, 19.3 Hispanic, 1.3% American Indian or Alaska Native and 0.6% Asian.

Among the substantiated cases of maltreatment, 38.8% were aged <1 month and 84.3% aged <1 week among whom 68.5% were characterized as victims of neglect and 13.2% as victims of physical abuse.  30.6% were maltreated at the age of <4 days at the time of maltreatment.

An editorial published along with the report suggested that neglect often was identified at birth. Based on the concentration of maltreatment and neglect reports in the first few days of life, the editorialists hypothesized that the majority of reports resulted from maternal or newborn drug tests.

Physical abuse defined as beating, kicking, biting, burning, shaking, or otherwise harming a child was found in 13.2% infants aged < 1 week and 16% among maltreated children of all ages.

One type of physical abuse, shaken baby syndrome (SBS)/abusive head trauma (AHT) resulted in severe physical injury and death in 21 to 32 infants aged <1 year per 100,000 population.

The editorialists said SBS and AHT resulting from physical abuse could be decreased by efforts through in-hospital programs aimed at parents of newborns.

Home-visitation and parent-training programs have been also known to reduce risk for child maltreatment, according to the editorial.