The image of abused and maltreated kids may not be associated with liberal and freedom-fighting America but it appears that the prevalence of maltreatment of children in the U.S. is widely underestimated.
A new study reveals that a large percentage of Americans have unfortunate plight as children with over 12 percent of children having experienced beatings, neglect, emotional or sexual abuse by their 18th birthday.
For the study "The Prevalence of Confirmed Maltreatment Among US Children, 2004 to 2011" published in the JAMA Pediatrics on June 2, Christopher Wildeman, from the Department of Sociology of Yale University in Connecticut, and colleagues examined that data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) Child File, which contains confirmed reports of child maltreatment in the U.S, to estimate the prevalence of cumulative confirmed maltreatment in children, or by the time they reach 18 years old.
The researchers found that more than 5.6 million children have experienced maltreatment between 2004 and 2011 albeit 80 percent of the cases they assessed were neglected and not abused. They also noted that girls were more likely to be mistreated than boys with 13 percent of the girls having confirmed maltreatment cases, or reports of maltreatment that were substantiated by the Child Protective Services, compared with 12 percent in boys.
Children belonging to certain minority groups also appear to be more prone to getting abused. Nearly twice as many black children, for instance, were maltreated compared with white children. The plight of black children is the grimmest with nearly 21 percent of black children or one in every five children having experienced maltreatment.
More than 14 percent of Native American children and 13 percent of Hispanic children, on the other hand, have confirmed cases of maltreatment. Asian children have the least rate of confirmed cases of maltreatment with 3.8 percent followed by white children with 10.7 percent.
The researchers also found that the risk of maltreatment is highest in young children with 2.1 percent of children having experienced maltreatment by their first birthday. The prevalence of maltreatment jumps to 5.8 percent by the time the children reach 5 years of age.
"Confirmed child maltreatment is dramatically underestimated in this country. Our findings show that it is far more prevalent than the 1 in 100 that is currently reported," Wildeman said. "Because child maltreatment is also a risk factor for poor mental and physical health outcomes throughout life, the results of this study provide valuable epidemiologic information."
