National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and ... - Children's Central

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oth definitional standards, rates of maltreatment for White children declined more thanthe rates for Black and Hispanic children in the incidence of abuse, physical abuse, andchildren seriously harmed by maltreatment. For Harm Standard emotional neglect,maltreatment rates for White children declined while rates for Black and Hispanicchildren increased. For Endangerment Standard emotional neglect, rates for Whitechildren increased less than the rates for Black and Hispanic children.Disability. The NIS–4 is the first NIS cycle to examine the relationshipbetween the incidence of maltreatment and children’s disability status. Under the HarmStandard, children with confirmed disabilities had significantly lower rates of physicalabuse and of moderate harm from maltreatment, but they had significantly higher rates ofemotional neglect and of serious injury or harm. Using the Endangerment Standard todefine maltreatment revealed more extensive differences, some similar to the HarmStandard findings, but also some quite different results. Children with disabilities had asignificantly lower rate of Endangerment Standard abuse overall, consistent with theirlower rate of physical abuse under both standards. Children with disabilities also hadsignificantly lower rates of Endangerment Standard sexual abuse, neglect, physicalneglect, and emotional neglect; and they were significantly less likely to be moderatelyharmed or endangered but not demonstrably harmed by the maltreatment. Similar to theHarm Standard finding, the children with disabilities were significantly more likely to beseriously injured or harmed when they experienced maltreatment. The findings on theincidence of emotional neglect are exactly opposite under the two standards. Thisindicates that, although children with confirmed disabilities were less likely to beemotionally neglected, they more often suffered harm from that maltreatment (in fact,serious harm) and so were more often countable under the Harm Standard in thiscategory.School enrollment. For the first time in the NIS, the NIS–4 gatheredinformation about children’s enrollment in school. Across both definitional standards,school-aged children who were not enrolled in school were sexually abused more oftenthan enrolled children and more often qualified for inferred harm, an outcome frequentlyassociated with sexual abuse. Enrolled children had significantly higher rates ofmoderate harm as a result of maltreatment and they were at marginally higher risk ofeducational neglect. This latter finding warrants explanation. On the one hand, simplyknowing that a school-age child is not enrolled in school is not sufficient to classify thechild as educationally neglected in NIS. Data on most nonenrolled children lacked10
details that would exclude legitimate reasons for their circumstance, such as the childbeing seriously ill, suspended, expelled, or recently moved and not yet enrolled at a newlocation. On the other hand, since schools regularly track absences of enrolled children,NIS sentinels are likely to describe these to the study.Enrolled children had higher rates of Harm Standard physical abuse and ofoverall Harm Standard maltreatment. In contrast, nonenrolled school-age children hadhigher rates of Endangerment Standard maltreatment, overall and in the categories ofneglect, physical neglect, and emotional neglect. The nonenrolled children were alsomore likely to be classified as endangered, but not demonstrably harmed, by theirEndangerment Standard maltreatment.5. Distribution of Child Abuse and Neglect by FamilyCharacteristicsThe incidence of child maltreatment varied as a function of severalcharacteristics of children’s families, including their parents’ employment, familysocioeconomic status, family structure and living arrangement, grandparent caregivers,family size, and the metropolitan status of the county.Parents’ employment. Unemployed parents were those described asunemployed or laid off but looking for work either currently (at the time of maltreatment)or at any time during the past year. Employed parents were those who had steady full- orpart-time work, with no reported unemployment currently or in the previous year.Parents who were not in the labor force were not employed or actively looking for work.These included parents who were retired, disabled, homemakers, receiving TemporaryAssistance for Needy Families (TANF), on maternity leave, in the hospital, or in jail.Under both definitional standards, the incidence of maltreatment and of all severities ofinjury or harm was higher for children with no parent in the labor force and those with anunemployed parent and lowest for those with employed parents. Compared to childrenwith employed parents, those with no parent in the labor force had 2 to 3 times the rate ofmaltreatment overall, about 2 times the rate of abuse, and 3 or more times the rate ofneglect. Children with unemployed parents had 2 to 3 times higher rates of neglect thanthose with employed parents.11
Page 1 and 2: Fourth National Incidence Studyof C
Page 3 and 4: Fourth National Incidence Studyof C
Page 5 and 6: EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThis executive sum
Page 7 and 8: In the NIS classifications, maltrea
Page 9 and 10: 3. The National Incidence of Child
Page 11 and 12: (36%, or 302,600 children) were emo
Page 13: maltreatment outcomes—rates of ch
Page 17 and 18: Grandparents as caregivers. The NIS
Page 19 and 20: males more often were abusers (62%
Page 21: maltreated children to enter CPS in
Page 26: • In the Sentinel Definitions Sur

National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and ... - Children's Central

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