America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2007
Child Maltreatment
Child maltreatment includes physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, as well as neglect (including medical neglect). Maltreatment in general is associated with a number of negative outcomes for children, including lower school achievement, juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, and mental health problems.33 Certain types of maltreatment can result in long-term physical, social, and emotional problems, and even death. For example, "shaken baby syndrome" can result in mental retardation, cerebral palsy, or paralysis. Child maltreatment includes both fatal and nonfatal maltreatment.
Indicator FAM7: Rate of substantiated maltreatment reports of children ages 0–17 per 1,000 children, 1998–2005
NOTE: The count of child victims is based on the number of investigations by Child Protective Services that found the child to be a victim of one or more types of maltreatment. The count of victims is, therefore, a report-based count and is a "duplicated count," since an individual child may have been maltreated more than once. The number of states reporting varies from year to year. States vary in their definition of abuse and neglect.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System.
- In 2005, there were 12 substantiated reports of child maltreatment per 1,000 children.34
- From 1998 through 2002, the rate of substantiated reports of child maltreatment varied between 12 and 13 reports per 1,000 children and has remained at approximately 12 reports per 1,000 children since 2002.
- Girls experienced higher rates of maltreatment than boys.
- Younger children are more frequently victims of child maltreatment than older children. In 2005, there were 17 substantiated child maltreatment reports per 1,000 children ages 0–3, compared with 14 for children ages 4–7, 11 for children ages 8–11, 10 for children ages 12–15, and 6 for children
ages 16–17. - While neglect is the most common type of maltreatment across all age groups, types of maltreatment vary by age. In 2005, 73 percent of substantiated child maltreatment reports for children ages 0–3 involved neglect, compared to 53 percent for teens ages 16 and older. On the other hand, 23 percent of substantiated reports for teens ages 16 and older involved physical abuse and 17 percent involved sexual abuse. Among substantiated reports for children ages 0–3, 12 percent involved physical abuse and 2 percent involved sexual abuse.
- In 2005, Black, non-Hispanic children had the highest rates of substantiated child maltreatment reports (20 maltreatment reports per 1,000 children), followed by American Indian/Alaska Native children (17), Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander children (16), children of multiple races (15), White, non-Hispanic children (11), Hispanic children (11), and Asian children (3).
- There are higher rates of substantiated child maltreatment reports among children in lower income families than children in families with other income levels.35
FAM7A HTML Table, FAM7B HTML Table
FAM7A Excel Table, FAM7B Excel Table
33 Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, Department of Health and Human Services. (2003). A Coordinated Response to Child Abuse and Neglect: The Foundation for Practice. Retrieved August 28, 2006, from the Child Welfare Information Gateway, http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/usermanuals/foundation/foundationf.cfm.
34 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families. (2007). Child Maltreatment 2005. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
35 Sedlak, A.J., and Broadhurst, D.D. (1996). Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect. Retrieved October 5, 2006, from the Child Welfare Information Gateway, http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/statsinfo/nis3.cfm.