NCJ Number
230788
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 34 Issue: 4 Dated: April 2010 Pages: 262-266
Date Published
April 2010
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This study examined the distribution of child maltreatment fatalities of children under the age of 5, by sex, race/ethnicity, type of maltreatment, and relationship to alleged perpetrator.
Abstract
Results indicate that of the 600 child maltreatment fatalities of children under the age of 5 reported by 16 States to the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), 52 percent of these deaths correspond to infants less than a year old. Additionally, findings show that two- thirds of child maltreatment fatalities among infants and young children are the result of abusive head trauma (AHT). The findings based on this surveillance system also suggest that fathers or their substitutes are solely responsible for over half of the cases of AHT and a third of the cases of other types of fatal physical abuse. Perpetrators tend to be male (50 to 72 percent of the cases), primarily the biological father (37 to 54 percent of the cases) followed by the mother's boyfriend or partner (3 to 25 percent of the cases). Babysitters also appear in 9 to 21 percent of the cases. More recent reports suggest increased risk for children when there are unrelated adults, especially unrelated men, in the household. Findings suggest the need to develop evaluation interventions targeting AHT to reduce the overall number of child maltreatment deaths in young children. These interventions should make special efforts to include fathers and their substitutes. Tables and references