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Child maltreatment increased with income inequality in study of US counties
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Higher rates of child maltreatment was significantly associated with higher income equality across US counties, according to recent study findings published in Pediatrics.
"We’ve known for some time that poverty is one of the strongest precursors of child abuse and neglect,” John Eckenrode, PhD, professor of human development and director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University, said in a press release. “In this paper we were also interested in areas with wide variations in income - think of counties encompassing affluent suburbs and impoverished inner cities — and in the United States there is quite a lot of variation in inequality from county to county and state to state.”
Eckenrode and colleagues evaluated data on reports of child abuse and neglect from 2005 and 2009 from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System to determine the link between county-level income inequality and rates of child maltreatment. Income inequality and childhood poverty data were collected from the American Community Survey.
Across all US counties, there was considerable variation in income inequality and child maltreatment rates. Child maltreatment rates at the county level were significantly associated with income inequality and child poverty rate. There was also a strong association between inequality and child maltreatment rates at the state level.
“Our study extended the list of unfavorable child outcomes associated with income inequality to include child abuse and neglect,” the researchers wrote. “Our findings show that the effect of income inequality remained significant after adjustments were made for county-level variations in child maltreatment rates. The impact of income inequality was also greatest in counties with the highest child poverty rates. Future research should replicate this finding at other geographic units of analysis in the United States and in other countries.”
Disclosure: The study was funded in part by the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families.
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