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Child abuse rose during recession, study finds
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The number of cases of abusive head trauma in children has risen since the onset of the economic recession in December 2007, according to findings presented at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies held in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Rachel P. Berger, MD, MPH, of the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center conducted a study involving 512 patients with abusive head trauma that were treated at children’s hospitals in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Columbus and Seattle. Prior to the recession, the number of cases of abusive head trauma was on average 6 per month.
Berger and her team consulted demographic and clinical data of all abusive head trauma cases both before the recession and after the economic recession began. The researchers looked at cases occurring between Jan. 1, 2004 through Nov. 30, 2007 and Dec. 1, 2007 through Dec. 31, 2009. The researchers noted that the abuse rose to 9.3 per month after the start of the recession.
Sixty-three percent of the children had severe injuries that required their admittance to the pediatric intensive care unit.
“The impetus for the study was that in 2008, more patients at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh UPMC died from abusive head trauma than from non-inflicted brain injury. To think that more children died from abusive head trauma than from any other type of brain injury that year is really remarkable and highly concerning,” Berger said in a press release.
Berger attributed the rise of abusive head trauma to a cutback of social services programs, causing a rise in family stress.
“Our results show that there has been a rise in abusive head trauma that coincided with the economic recession, and that it’s not a phenomenon isolated to our region but happening on a much more widespread level,” Berger added in the press release. “This suggests we may need to dramatically increase our child abuse prevention efforts now and in future times of economic hardship.”
Berger R. E-PAS20101140.4. Presented at: 2010 Pediatric Academic Societies Annual Meeting; May 1-4, 2010; Vancouver, British Columbia.