Child neglect is the most common and arguably the most detrimental form of child maltreatment, yet public awareness of neglect lags far behind child abuse (Dubowitz, 2007). In 2009, an estimated 763,000 children in the United States were abused or neglected, 78% of whom experienced neglect, either alone or in combination with other forms of maltreatment. Approximately one-third (35.8%) of child...

OBJECTIVE This paper was intended to distinguish between poor parenting and child emotional maltreatment (CEM), to inform child welfare and public health policymakers of the need for differentiated responses. METHODS Scientific literature was integrated with current practice and assumptions relating to poor/dysfunctional parenting and child emotional maltreatment, with a primary focus on the ...

BACKGROUND Consistent findings about the effectiveness of parent programs to prevent or reduce child maltreatment are lacking. METHODS In the present meta-analysis we synthesized findings from 27 independent samples from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the effectiveness of 20 different intervention programs aimed at (i) preventing the occurrence of child maltreatment in the general pop...

Whereas child maltreatment research has developed considerable evidence on post-natal risk-factors, pre-natal circumstances have been largely overlooked. The circumstances surrounding a pregnancy may considerably impact the environment in which later parenting behaviors occur. This study examines one of the earliest potentially identifiable risk-factors for child maltreatment: the intentions of...

OBJECTIVE Evidence is steadily accumulating that a preventable environmental hazard, child maltreatment, exerts causal influences on the development of long-standing patterns of antisocial behavior in humans. The relationship between child maltreatment and antisocial outcome, however, has never previously been tested in a large-scale study in which official reports (rather than family member re...

OBJECTIVE Based on the data obtained through Child Protective Services (CPS) case records abstraction, this study aimed to explore patterns of overlapping types of child maltreatment in a sample of urban, ethnically diverse male and female youth (n= 303) identified as maltreated by a large public child welfare agency. METHODS A cluster analysis was conducted on data for 303 maltreated youth. ...

This article applies a developmental-ecological perspective to the question of the etiology of physical child abuse and neglect by organizing the paper around a variety of "contexts of maltreatment." The roles of parent and child characteristics and processes are considered ("developmental context"), including an examination of intergenerational transmission. The "immediate interactional contex...

OBJECTIVES The current study investigates the moderating effect of perceived social support on associations between child maltreatment severity and adult trauma symptoms. We extend the existing literature by examining the roles of severity of multiple maltreatment types (i.e., sexual, physical, and emotional abuse; physical and emotional neglect) and gender in this process. METHODS The sample...

OBJECTIVES To determine the extent to which children with a hospital admission related to assault or maltreatment or to a notified sexually transmitted infection (STI) have contact with the Western Australian Department for Child Protection (DCP), and to investigate injuries and conditions often associated with child maltreatment and subsequent contact with the DCP. DESIGN, PARTICIPANTS AND S...

OBJECTIVE: To test, with a sample of adolescent mothers (16–20 at childbirth) and their first-born infants/toddlers (average age 1 year), whether the impact of a home visiting (HV) child maltreatment prevention program was moderated by maternal depression. METHODS: The study design was a randomized controlled trial of Healthy Families Massachusetts, a statewide child maltreatment prevention pro...