A brief history of fatal child maltreatment and neglect
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REVIEW
A brief history of fatal child maltreatment and neglect Ann H. Ross • Chelsey A. Juarez
Accepted: 6 January 2014 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract Child abuse encompasses four major forms of abuse: physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, and neglect. The United States retains one of the worst records of child abuse in the industrialized world. It has also been determined that a large portion of these cases are missed and go undocumented in state and federal reporting agencies. In addition, disparate risk factors have been identified for physical abuse and neglect cases, but substance abuse has been found to be a significant factor in all forms of abuse. Fatal child maltreatment and neglect investigations require a multi-pronged and multidisciplinary approach requiring the coordination and information gathering from various agencies. A major difficulty in determining the accidental or non-accidental nature of these cases is that the account surrounding the events of the death of child is acquired from the caretaker. In this review, we outline common diagnostic characteristics and patterns of non-accidental injuries and neglect as a result of nutritional deprivation. Keywords Child maltreatment Neglect Etiology of non-accidental trauma Risk factors
Introduction The term child abuse encompasses four major categories of non-accidental abuse, physical abuse, neglect, psychological abuse, and sexual abuse [1]. Among industrialized nations, the United States (US) retains the worst record on A. H. Ross (&) C. A. Juarez Department of Sociology and Anthropology, NC State University, CB 8107, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA e-mail: [email protected]
non-accidental child abuse [2]. For the fiscal year 2012, there were approximately 686,000 victims of child abuse in the US, a national rate of 9.2 per 1,000 children [2, 3]. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, an estimated 1,750 children died of maltreatment in 2011, which is a rate of 2.1 per 100,000 children [3, 4]. Although overall rates of US based child abuse have seen a slight decline (*4 %) in the past 5 years, the breakdown of abuse types (e.g., physical, neglect, etc.) and abuse demographics (most vulnerable ages, etc.) has remained relatively steady. Nationally, the overwhelming percentage of abuse cases (71 %) are consistently recorded as neglect alone or in combination of other types of abuse, while approximately 48 % of all cases are recorded as physical abuse alone or in combination with other forms of maltreatment [2]. Children B2 years old represent over 30 % of all victims [2, 3]. Studies including all forms of child abuse conducted over the last 5 years show abuse at similar levels for both boys and girls, although the most recent data suggest that girls are victimized in slightly higher percentages (*51 %) [2], but other sources cite boys as being victims of abuse more often than girls particularly in toddlers [5]. However, these disparities in the literature are likely the result of data sourc
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