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A national analysis of deaths from child abuse by county has shown what many may have intuitively expected: A higher concentration of poverty is consistently associated with higher rates of fatalities.
"These results suggest that the economic atmosphere where a child lives may be associated with their risk of suffering a fatal abusive injury," write Caitlin A. Farrell, MD, from the Division of Emergency Medicine and the Division of General Pediatrics at Boston Children's Hospital in Massachusetts, and colleagues. Their study appeared online April 24 and in the May issue of Pediatrics.
Dr Farrell and colleagues found that US counties with the highest poverty concentration, defined as the percentage of the population living below the federally defined poverty threshold, had more than 3 times the rate of child abuse fatalities compared with counties with the lowest poverty concentration (adjusted incidence rate ratio, 3.03: 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.4 - 3.79).
The authors note that whereas individual and household poverty is an established risk factor for child maltreatment, the effect of community poverty on child abuse has been less widely studied, but is becoming better understood.
"For decades, developmental psychologists have recognized that a child's community and surrounding economic conditions are part of the macrosystem that affect a child's growth and development," they write.
Read more here. (Medscape)
"These results suggest that the economic atmosphere where a child lives may be associated with their risk of suffering a fatal abusive injury," write Caitlin A. Farrell, MD, from the Division of Emergency Medicine and the Division of General Pediatrics at Boston Children's Hospital in Massachusetts, and colleagues. Their study appeared online April 24 and in the May issue of Pediatrics.
Dr Farrell and colleagues found that US counties with the highest poverty concentration, defined as the percentage of the population living below the federally defined poverty threshold, had more than 3 times the rate of child abuse fatalities compared with counties with the lowest poverty concentration (adjusted incidence rate ratio, 3.03: 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.4 - 3.79).
The authors note that whereas individual and household poverty is an established risk factor for child maltreatment, the effect of community poverty on child abuse has been less widely studied, but is becoming better understood.
"For decades, developmental psychologists have recognized that a child's community and surrounding economic conditions are part of the macrosystem that affect a child's growth and development," they write.
Read more here. (Medscape)
