After more than 5 decades of attention to child abuse and neglect or more generically, child maltreatment, in the peer reviewed literature, the question remains, “have we made a dent in the number of children who are abused or neglected?” In order, to construct an answer that is straightforward question, we need to start with clear definitions and trustworthy statistics so that we can be clear about what cases we are measuring and what trends we are comparing. Towards that end, there are two authoritative publically available data sources that provide clear definitions of the different forms of child maltreatment and which provide rigorously collected data on these forms of child maltreatment. 

Definitions:

There are many forms of child maltreatment and in recent years the field has expanded its reach to address other forms of child victimization to include human trafficking and use of the minors in child pornography. For the purposes of this review, the focus will be upon three types of abuse, namely, physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect.

At a most basic level of description, physical abuse occurs when the child is found to have an injury caused by the child’s caregiver; sexual abuse occurs when a child is involved in sexual activities by the caregiver; and, neglect occurs when a child’s basic needs are not met by the caregiver.

The trend in physical abuse is less clear but does seem to be decreasing as well. With regard to neglect, more analysis will be necessary since the trend in the reported cases was relatively small over the several decade periods and the comparison between NIS-4 and NIS-3 did not reach statistical significance.

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Annabela Rose
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Clinics in Mother and Child Health
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